Solgar: Building Brand Equity

Why Strava

Solgar is a nutritional supplement brand that has been developing products to improve health for over 75 years. Well known to its core audience, Solgar wanted to grow awareness further, particularly among athletes and active people. As part of this wider initiative, the brand became the Official Wellness partner of the AJ Bell Great Run Series, including The Great North Run – one of the world’s largest races of its kind – and turned to Strava to expand their reach further.

The Great North Run represented an excellent “tentpole” moment for Solgar to build an effective and authentic campaign on Strava. 

Using a combination of Segment and Distance Challenges, the brand could activate with athletes taking part in the race itself – targeting an exact segment on the course, and also reach the many thousands of athletes who couldn’t be there on the day.

And with some brilliant prizes, including a sports vacation plus gift vouchers, Solgar bundles and more, the offer was compelling for athletes to hit their goals and claim their rewards.

Impact

Promotion of challenges on multiple platforms is something we often advise brands. Together with their agency, Zenith Media, Solgar ran supplementary audio ads on Spotify and Acast to grow awareness of the challenges and drive participation.

The two-challenge approach of segment and distance worked to raise awareness among Strava athletes whether they were taking part in The AJ Bell Great North Run or remotely within the selected target location. Indeed, with over 1.1m unique users reached, the challenges made a significant impact across Strava and drove significant brand awareness. 

What about the effect of challenges with race participants on the actual course? With over 18,000 completions of the Golden Moment Challenge, over 30% of all those running received an authentic, timely and relevant reward for their efforts – with Solgar at the centre.