In celebration of the New York City Marathon this Sunday, ASICS partnered up with the historic race in a noble cause to create something worthy enough to commemorate the world’s largest running event. What better way to do such a thing than to erect a 90-foot tall selfie stick in the heart of Manhattan’s Meat Packing District? The world-famous footwear company found themselves asking that very question and went for it.
On Thursday, October 29th, the shoe company and official partner of the 2015 New York City Marathon gathered in Gansevoort Plaza to unveil the giant machine. Standing at 90-feet tall and eight stories high, the colossal apparatus clocked in as the “World’s Largest selfie stick” while providing a perfect opportunity for ASICS to advertise their brand, a surefire way for New York City travelers to outshine their friends on social media, and—most importantly—an epic selfie.
The contraption was open to the public from Thursday, October 29, through Saturday, October 31, allowing tourists, streetwalkers, and selfie enthusiasts of all ages to line up, hook their phone up to the machine, and have their chance to become a part of history.
As the ASICS press release explained the operation of the enormous selfie stick, “Participants will affix their personal phones into a custom selfie-orb and push the launch button, which will trigger the phone’s built-in video function and send the phone along the 90-foot, high-speed track into the sky. When it reaches its highest point, the phone will pause to reveal and capture a special message, then begin its trip back down the custom track. When the video record ends, participants will have an original selfie video that can be shared across any social channel using the hashtag #GoRunIt.”
When using the selfie stick, user’s phones were propelled into the midst of the iconic New York City skyline, while recording all of the breathtaking scenes that lay beneath it. At the height of your phone’s journey, the selfie video captured a glimpse of ASICS’s marathon mantra, “It’s a big race, #GoRunIt”, leaving fans with a one of a kind selfie and a priceless marathon memory.
The machine was not available for use throughout the duration of the marathon, meaning these towering selfies were not eligible to be featured in the official NYC Marathon Snapchat story; however, the selfies had a considerable impact on Twitter over the course of the weekend.
With ASICS honoring the world’s largest race in the world’s largest city with the world’s largest selfie stick, marathon weekend in New York City had no shortage of superlatives.