STUDY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PROMOTING RUNNING EVENTS IN CORRELATION WITH THE PARTICIPANTS’ OPINIONS

. Participation in running sports events has become an increasingly important phenomenon in recent decades, which is more and more present in everyday life. An important role in the growth and development of street running sports events is played by the promotion campaign carried out by the organisers. This paper aims to reveal the opinions of participants in the street running sports events organised by Bucharest Running Club regarding the way of organising these events. Using the questionnaire as a research tool, aspects related to the influence of the media on the conduct of events were identified. An increased proportion of respondents, namely 76.8%, believe that the press influences the development of sports events. The majority of respondents (93.6%) positively assess the quality of the information about the events organised by Bucharest Running Club, which are provided on the website and social media pages of the events, awarding values above 5 in the range from 1 (totally unsatisfied) to 10 (totally satisfied). At the same time, the respondents most frequently gave this aspect the value 10 (34%). The research findings highlight the importance of monitoring how sports events are promoted in correlation with a questionnaire administered to participants, which will reveal the elements that need to be improved, with the ultimate goal of offering athletes an optimal promotion plan for these competitions.


Introduction
Street running is a widespread social phenomenon."Today, running has become an immensely popular pastime pursued in the public sphere by millions of recreational participants worldwide.Up to the 1960s, however, recreational jogging along the street, in a park or in a forest was considered a strange activity".(Scheerder et al., 2015) The style and way of practising running is in full development, although it is essentially one of the most natural movements.Nowadays, there is an opportunity to see more and more running competitions dedicated to both children and adults.
Since the 1960s, the "running sport" has been growing internationally as part of a specific trend defined as "desportification and deinstitutionalisation of the sport sector"; as a result, running has developed into an independent sport dissociated from organised athletics (Van Dyck et al., 2017).
Running has been very popular for years, especially in organised mass races."Various running events take place all over the world, at different distances and locations, including charity running events."(Poczta et al., 2021) Running has gained great popularity in recent years, as demonstrated by the fact that 50 million people in Europe run regularly.A sports competition that has grown exponentially in importance is the marathon race, with its challenging course of 42 kilometres and 195 meters.At the European level, participation in this demanding competition increased by 10.3% from 2009 to 2014 and stabilised worldwide after this period (Andersen, 2019).
Running events are thought to be essential socialising tools and therefore every nation has a great responsibility to promote and develop them.Time has shown that participation in sports events has a beneficial role in the efficiency of daily activities, reducing mental stress and enhancing well-being.The traditional and online promotion of running events is very important for both developing them and increasing the number of participants.

Street runninga mass phenomenon
Over the decades, mass sports events have made significant progress.In terms of structure, the events are aimed at both professional and amateur runners.However, at the events organised by Bucharest Running Club Association in 2021, amateur runners have the largest share, namely about 90% of the total number of athletes present at the start of all races.
Running races in Romania attract more and more participants from one year to another, whether we speak about road running, cross country, trails, kids race, fun run, tower running; 127 important running events were organised in 2019 (Cernaianu et al., 2021).
The Bucharest Running Club Association was founded in 2007, and in 2008, it organised its first sports event, namely the Bucharest Marathon.Since 2012, it has been organising the Bucharest Half Marathon, and since 2016, the Bucharest Family & 10K.
According to the statistics presented by the Bucharest Running Club Association, the total number of runners per year has increased over time, from 900 in 2007 to almost 50,000 in 2019, for all events organised by this association.An important role in raising the number of participants was played by the campaigns promoted on social media and online platforms.
Rojo and da Rocha (2018) claim that people involved in running have good economic positions, and most of them are men aged between 30 and 50 years.

Promoting running events
In modern society, participation in street running events represents a phenomenon whose importance has greatly increased, becoming more and more present in everyday life.Designing the promotion campaign carried out by the organisers plays an important role in the growth and development of these sports events.
Nowadays, sport and media share a symbiotic relationship in which both exert an endless and continuous influence.The media generate profit through sport, while sport and its related content is transmitted through the media, and thus both of them develop and expand (Kim & Park, 2017).This is associated with the fact that many people around the world, particularly the young generation, take part in debates on Facebook, tweet or like a picture on a daily basis (Parganas et al., 2015).In this respect, sports clubs use advanced and effective communication tools to create a positive image of themselves through social media with the aim of reaching out to people (Nicholson et al., 2015).
Designing and building a strategy to promote street running events is imperative for both developing them and increasing the number of participants.At the same time, creating a strategy to promote such events can result in fulfilling the standard objectives imposed by the Association of International Marathons and Road Races and the World Athletics.
An effective promotion plan should be based on organisational, marketing and competitive objectives that are in a part-to-whole relationship, this association aiming to increase communications and thus marketing activity, which finally leads to the development of street running events organised by Bucharest Running Club (Constantinescu & Gheorghe, 2015).
Sport has become a profitable advertising and promotion tool under the influence of the media, but also an attractive economic activity for investors.In international politics, it is noticed that sport is becoming more and more efficient.
The media are a basic tool for informing, instructing and examining social problems, as well as shaping social values."In sport, as in many other fields, organizations have been utilising social media to maximize their communication efforts and reach their audiences."(Abuin-Penas et al., 2019) As the use of social media has developed, businesses and brands have created practices to communicate with consumers and generate revenue through interactive online tools.This has led to a specific role for social media, which is distinct from traditional media or communication tools.Social media are a cost-effective medium that: includes interactivity, collaboration and co-creation above one-to-many communication; integrates communication and distribution channels; provides opportunities for customisation; allows higher speed to the delivery of information communication and feedback (Shilbury et al., 2014).
"Because social media encourage two-way communication and interaction, they are valuable relationship-building tools for the marketer who chooses to use them to build dialogue and engage customers."(Achen, 2017) The media relations strategy aims at a wide range of media channels -both specialised publications (sport, lifestyle) and consumer publications, adapting the message according to the profile, typology and target, so as to reach out to as many representatives of the target audience as possible in various ways.The strategy is also based on articles and media appearances generated by press conferences and media campaigns.
Furthermore, due to the upward dynamics of the online environment and the increasingly important role it plays in promoting sports events, online promotion networks can make the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful event.
Unlike traditional radio, TV or media advertising, online promotion can be viewed at any time, and the costs of broadcasting are much lower compared to the traditional form.Another advantage of this form is the interactivity that allows real-time feedback from prospects.
Social networks have become so important that they are a way of life for many people, "and Facebook is probably the most popular one.Society has become totally connected."(Fernandez-Rio & Bernabe-Martin, 2019)

Research purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the participants' opinions on the way of promoting street running events organised by the Bucharest Running Club Association.The research also aims to highlight the possibility of increasing the number of participants and promote the overall image of the aforementioned association by the existence of a correlation between the participants' preferences and the campaign to promote running events through the media and social networks.In addition, the study aims to assess the effectiveness of the promotion campaign for the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020 event.

Research tasks
 Assessing the effectiveness of the promotion campaign for the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020 event. Examining the participants' opinions on aspects that need to be improved in the way of organising and promoting running events.

Participants
The studied population consists of 1,054 respondents participating in running events organised by Bucharest Running Club.Their gender distribution is as follows: 35.7% women and 64.3% men (Figure 1) aged between 18 and 75 years, the average age being 39 years (37.66 for women and 39.86 for men).Regarding the geographical area, there are respondents from all Romanian counties, but most of them are from Bucharest (76.5%).We mention that we eliminated four responses given by those who did not want to specify their gender.So, the analysed sample included 1,050 respondents (675 men -64.3% and 375 women -35.7%).

Instrument
The participants' opinions on how to promote, organise and conduct the events were investigated through the questionnaire survey method.The questionnaire was intended for the participants in the running sports events organised by Bucharest Running Club.

Procedure
The questionnaire was developed in Romanian and send by e-mail to the participants in Half Marathon and Marathon with the help of the organisers.The data were collected between 27 May and 2 June 2021.For this purpose, the Daedalus Online Application was used, which generated a link that was distributed by the Bucharest Running Club Association to its own base through a newsletter, with no personal data transfer.

Results
Question 1, How did you find out about the events organised by Bucharest Running Club in which you participated?, received the following responses: -From the online/Internet environment; -From the employing company; -From friends; -From the radio; -From the TV; -From the written press; -From the NGO I ran for; -From street advertising; -In subway stations; -In public transport.
Figure 2 shows that 54.3% of participants found out about the events organised by Bucharest Running Club from the online environment, and 27.7%, from the written press or from friends.
The results obtained highlight that the online promotion system intended for a certain community has led to an increase in the visibility of events and therefore an increase in the number of participants.Also, 65% of the respondents who found out about these running races from the online environment would like to participate in future events.The Internet is the main source of information on the events organised by Bucharest Running Club.Respondents found, also, information at their workplace (26.9%), from friends (26.6%) or from the radio (21.6%).
An analysis by age group reveals that most respondents older than 50 years (72.5%)use the online Internet for information, while only 38% of those under the age of 30 find out about these events from this source, the main means of information for this category being the workplace through the employing company (51%).Of them, 51.3% say they do not train regularly for running races, and only 27.2% of those who train on a regular basis participate in such events as a result of this means of information.
Figure 2. Sources of information for the attended sports events organised by Bucharest Running Club Question 2: Please rate some aspects related to running events organised by Bucharest Running Club.Give a score from 1 to 10, where 1 means "totally dissatisfied" and 10 means "totally satisfied".
The responses indicated that athletes were generally satisfied with the organisation of sports events by Bucharest Running Club, the less satisfactory aspects being the offline promotion of the event (average score: 7.46), the Instagram page (average score: 7.74) and the Run Romania Application (average score: 7.99).
Female respondents are generally more satisfied with the analysed aspects (with an average score of 8.7 compared to 8.3 for men); at the same time, more positive feedback is provided by high school graduates (with an average score of 9 compared to higher education graduates, whose average score is 7.8).(Figure 3 The Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated.The relationship between the aspects presented above suggests a positive association between the types of promotion of the event (offline and online), with a correlation coefficient of 0.667.Also, respondents who positively rate the event website are more satisfied with its Facebook page, with a correlation coefficient of 0.734, and their satisfaction with the Facebook page has a strong positive association with the Instagram page, the correlation coefficient being 0.799.The way of transmitting the results correlates with the experience of distributing the participation kit, with a correlation coefficient of 0.587.Positive values regarding the registration process are found in association with the favourable rating of the event website, the correlation coefficient being 0.571.At the same time, the higher the respondents' satisfaction with the Run Romania Application, the more positively they rate the event website and the way of transmitting the results, the correlation coefficient being 0.621.Question 3: How do you rate the quality of the information provided about the events organised by Bucharest Running Club on its website and social media pages of the events?Give a score from 1 to 10, where 1 means "totally dissatisfied" and 10 means "totally satisfied".
It is obvious that digital progress has expanded the online communication channels used to promote the event, and social networks have become the main media promotion tool.The collected responses indicate that the average score provided by respondents is 8.5, which means that they positively appreciate the quality of online information about running events on both the event website and the Facebook and Instagram social networks (Figure 4).An increased percentage of respondents (76.7%) believe that the press can influence the development of running events to a large and very large extent, while 6.7% claim that the press has a minor (small and very small) impact in this regard (Figure 5).Most often, respondents say that the press should be more involved in the production of sports articles and news in order to develop running events (51.9%), while only 36.3% believe that the press would have an impact on the development of this phenomenon through the online promotion of sports events.Live broadcasting of running events is a measure considered by less than half of respondents to be effective in facilitating the development of sports events (42.5%).(Figure 6) Regarding a runner's decision to attend a sports event, respondents believe that the press is an important influencing factor, 45.7% considering that it impacts the decision to participate in a running event to a large and very large extent (Figure 7, Table 2).To what extent do you think the press can influence a runner's decision to attend a sports event?
The more respondents believe that the press can influence the development of sports events, the more convinced they are that a runner's decision to attend a sports event is favoured by the press, so that there is a positive association between the two variables (p = 0.0005), the Pearson correlation coefficient being 0.523 (Table 3).

Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020general information
The Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon event was organised for the first time in 2008, and 13 editions were held up to 2020.
Within the event, several races dedicated to both children and adults are organised over different distances.Currently, the following races are organised: 15K Race, 10K Race, Half Marathon, Marathon and Relay (4 x 10 km) and All You Can Run race.
The evolution of Bucharest Running Club and Bucharest Marathon has been organic; if, in 2008, there were several hundred participants in the only event of this kind in the country, there are now thousands of participants from all over the world.The impact of organising such events on the population has made all major cities in Romania start organising street running competitions over longer or shorter distances.
As can be seen in Figure 8, the number of participants in the Bucharest Marathon has constantly increased, from 800 participants in the first edition to 16,000 in the 13th edition held in 2020.
In 2020, the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon took place online between October 11 and 18 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, in compliance with the legislation in force to prevent the spread of the virus.

Promotion plan analysis -Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020
The traditional and online promotion of running events is very important for both developing them and increasing the number of participants.
"The strategic use of social media category included research examining the role and function of social media (and specific tools) from a brand's perspective.This category includes studies concerned with the planned use of and organisational objectives for social media; attitudes towards social media by managers; the impact of social media on brand equity/outcomes and the integration of social media use with a brand's traditional communication and promotional strategy."(Filo et al., 2015) The communication channels were chosen according to the main objectives of the Bucharest Running Club Association, whose purpose is to raise the number of participants by increasing brand awareness, shaping a favourable picture of how to organise and conduct running events and promoting a positive image of the association.
Through communications and published articles, the association aims to both attract sports consumers and highlight the importance of a healthy lifestyle.The strategy of promoting sports events organised by the Bucharest Running Club Association used five communication channels.The promotion/media exposure plan for the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020 event included: written press: insertions of mock-ups, advertorials, testimonials, interviews; TV station: advertising spot, show appearances, interviews; radio station: advertising spot, promotional campaign for the race, show appearances; online: web-banner, advertorials, articles; social media: Blog, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Plus, Live Streaming.
Technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and many other social tools created new opportunities to trace the interactions between social connectivity and health (Centola, 2013), sports events, etc.
In July 2020, the most used social networks worldwide in terms of number of active users (in millions) were Facebook with 2606 million monthly active users, WhatsApp and
According to Datareportal (2020) for Romania, the number of Internet users increased by 289 thousand (+1.9%) between 2019 and 2020, and the number of social media users increased by 570 thousand (+5.5%) between April 2019 and January 2020.
In the field of sports events, promotional activity cannot take place by using a single technique or method, which is why a promotional mix is used.
In this research, an important role is played by the analysis of published articles and the analysis of the audience recorded at the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon sports event.

Monitoring the information provided by the media -Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon
The information provided by the media through various channels was monitored, and the results obtained are shown in Tables 4-7.The monitoring was carried out between 7 September and 6 November 2020 through the Bucharest Running Club Association and Media Trust.
During the monitoring, the number of articles published in the press, the type of articles and the advertising value equivalency (AVE), which expresses the amounts that should be spent for the material or the dissemination of a given information; if it were an advertisement in the same format, the number of potential contacts with the media message (audience) could be checked, and due to some colours added to the application, users could be informed if a certain text is positive, neutral or negative in relation to the monitored topic.Results of the quantitative monitoring of the information provided by the media before and after the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon sports event are shown in Table 8 and Table 9.Table 9 highlights an increase in the number of publications issued after the marathon, which was also influenced by the press events organised prior to the race, namely: -Press conference to announce the Bucharest Marathon 2020 event and present the first market research analysing the sports phenomenon in Romania; Following the data collection and their interpretation, we carried out a SWOT analysis that provided us with the necessary information to develop a strategy to promote street running sports events (Table 10).
Table 10.SWOT analysis -Promotion plan for the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020

Positive factors
Negative factors

Internal perspectives
 Strengths  Existence of a long and successful experience in organising and conducting international mass sports events  Existence of a brand association since the first edition of the sports event, whose main sponsor is Raiffeisen Bank  Reputation of the association and provided services among runners  Existence of partnerships with media channels (TV and radio), which led to the free promotion of the event  Financial support provided by sponsors  Existence of online promotion channels, social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter), online portals, website  Weaknesses  Insufficient promotion budget due to low amounts offered by sponsors and partners  Lack of partnerships with international media channels  Absence of a strategy to promote the event  Failure to adapt the promotion plan for running events to the participant's profile and desires  Existence of sports articles written without complying with the promotion plan  Lack of financial support from the local public administration

External perspectives
 Opportunities  Organisation of sports events for leisure activities, healthy lifestyle and socialisation  Reduced effective involvement in sports competitions  Existence of a large number of runners among the capital's citizens who show interest in street running events  Possibility to participate in virtually organised and monitored running events through applications  -Increasing the number of participants in running events by developing social networks and online portals.According to Thompson et al. (2018), "sport organisations should look to leverage creative strategies to overcome limitations that platform-specific functionality may impose".
o Threats  Diversification of the sports consumer (international sports concepts, multiple sports platforms, new alternatives for sports events)  Impact of the pandemic on the budgets of sponsors and participants  -Appearance of other competitive street running events with better organisation and conditions than those offered by the Bucharest Running Club Association After collecting the data and interpreting the questionnaire, we developed a strategy for the promotion of street running sports events, adapted to the needs and desires of participants in running events.The strategy is shown in Table 11.

Table 11. Strategy for the promotion of street running sports events, adapted to the needs and desires of participants in running events
Creating a promotion plan that includes 40% social media publications.Targeting the sports consumer by customer segment based on social networks used, age, expressed interest and preferences.Implementing a Display campaign that will aim to popularise the event through adaptable graphic advertisements (including images, titles, logos and descriptions through which Google will automatically generate advertisements that will be displayed on the Google Display Network).Targeting can be done in different ways such as using sites on which the advertisement is displayed, taking into account demographic details and user interests.Running video campaigns that can display individual video advertisements or embedded within other streaming videos on both YouTube and the Google Display Network.Preparing a social media plan that includes weekly articles with themes referring to the benefits of participating in running sports events, the benefits of running and socialising during such events.Banner advertising -placing a banner on partner/sponsor websites and inviting visitors to access them so that they are redirected to the event website.

Discussion and Conclusion
It is important to highlight that the number of participants in street running events can be increased by both improving the conditions provided during the event and creating a promotion strategy based on the profile and opinions of the athlete engaged in the events organised by Bucharest Running Club.Constantinescu and Gheorghe (2015) emphasise the idea that the marketing orientation, including the promotion plan, focuses on participants and their needs, so that most often the company carries out external communication actions.
Most respondents (63.7%) state that the press would have an impact on the development of this phenomenon by promoting events in the online environment, while only 48.1% believe that the press should be involved in the creation of sports articles and news.The live broadcast of running sports events is a measure considered by 42.5% of respondents to be effective in facilitating the development of sports events.
After monitoring the campaign for the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon event, it was found that the promotion on social media was carried out between September and October 2020 and included 61 materials/posts that were followed by 269,934 readers, the most important social media pages analysed being Facebook -Bucharest Marathon and Instagram -RunInBucharest.
Regarding the media channels used to promote running sports events, a preference can be observed for social networks and online portals, which are also the most accessed by participants in running events.The next communication channel was radio, with the events organised in 2021 having the greatest reach.
This perspective suggests the need to develop a new promotion strategy that should be focused on the online environment, which is the main source of transmitting useful information about the organisation and conduct of running events.Results indicate that both networks, the portals and Facebook, represent the main sources of information about sports events.Facebook was used more for organisational promotion.
A final conclusion that can be drawn from this research refers to the importance of monitoring how sports events are promoted in correlation with a questionnaire administered to participants, which will reveal the elements that need to be improved, with the ultimate goal of offering athletes an optimal promotion plan for these competitions.Another significant element in the evolution of mass running can be the implementation of new marketing strategies.

Informed Consent Statement:
The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Figure
Figure 1.Gender of respondents (percentages)

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Influence of the press on the development of running events

Figure 7 .
Figure 7. Influence of the press on attending a running event

Figure 8 .
Figure 8. Evolution of the participation in the Bucharest Marathon event Authors' Contribution: All authors have equally contributed to this study.Funding: This research received no external funding.Institutional Review Board Statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Ethics Committee of the National University of Physical Education and Sports in Bucharest, Romania (ID: 991/2903).

Table 1 .
Gender of respondents ) Rating the quality of information provided about the events organised by Bucharest Running Club on its website and social media pages of the events Question 4: To what extent do you think the press can influence the development of running events?

Table 2 .
Results Question 6: To what extent do you think the press can influence a runner's decision to attend a sports event?
To facilitate the development of running events, where do you think the media should be more involved?

Table 3 .
Correlation -To what extent do you think the media can influence the development of running sports events?and To what extent do you think the media can influence a runner's decision to join a running sports event?

Table 4 .
Summary of Social media monitoring -Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020

Table 5 .
Summary of Written/Online press monitoring -Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020

Table 6 .
Summary of Online portals -Radio monitoring -Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020

Table 7 .
Summary of Radio-TV monitoring -Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon 2020

Table 8 .
Quantitative monitoring of the information provided by the media before the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon sports event

Table 9 .
Quantitative monitoring of the information provided by the media after the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Marathon sports event Organisation of the online EAT.TRAIN.RUN workshop; -6 days of online interviews with elite runners and representatives of partner NGOs.