When Nike thinks innovation it thinks progression. So at this year’s Tour de France it created the Chalkbot to raise money and awareness for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Born out of the observation that every year supporters of the Tour de France write chalk messages on the streets surrounding the race, Nike followed suit – it just turned up the volume, a lot …

People were invited to send in messages of support via Twitter, SMS and wearyellow.com – then in turn, the Chalkbot would print these messages on the pavements surrounding the race.

The Chalkbot looks like this and has a computer inside which happily received people’s messages and then printed them out on the streets.

It didn’t stop there – Nike then took photos of the messages and sent them back to the person who requested the message in the first place. They were also posted on wearyellow.com on a Google Map so people could see exactly where the messages came from.

What eventuated was a collaboration between traditional and very non-traditional communication specialists to ensure people saw these tangible voices of support move into social media networks, where word of mouth became a powerful driver.

Well done to all involved. This is a campaign that required insight, patience and the support of everyday people to be a success.

Posted by: Carmen Campbell
Thanks to: Nike Chalkbot, Contagious