Case Study: World Marathon Majors

Executive Summary

In late 2024, Abbott World Marathon Majors (WMM) successfully migrated its Global Run Club platform to MoveZenGo, marking a strategic shift towards greater control, scalability, and user engagement. This transition allows WMM to seamlessly integrate with its existing cloud infrastructure, manage challenges more effectively, and deliver a richer experience for its global community of runners.

MoveZenGo’s customizable, white-label platform offers advanced features such as leaderboards, team challenges, paid event registration, and real-time CRM syncing, ensuring both participant engagement and administrative efficiency. The migration was completed within tight deadlines, supported by detailed onboarding resources, seamless account continuity, and responsive technical assistance.

Introduction

In late 2024, Abbot World Marathon Majors (WMM) transitioned their Global Run Club to MoveZenGo. This transition marks a significant milestone for WMM in providing runners with an intuitive and feature-rich challenge experience. MoveZenGo provides full API access and integration into the WMM cloud infrastructure. Additionally, WMM has gained full control over the set-up for all their future challenges.

About WMM and the Global Run Club

Abbott World Marathon Majors is a global series uniting the world’s most renowned marathons: Tokyo, Boston, London, Sydney, Berlin, Chicago, and New York City. Established to celebrate elite and amateur runners alike, WMM recognizes top performances through its ranking system and the prestigious Six Star Finisher program.

The Global Run Club is the virtual platform for the global WMM community. With 33,000 users, the platform provides free-to-run challenges, premium paid challenges, a wealth of tips and information related to marathon running, and a place to connect with fellow runners. According to Director of Special Programs Nicole Sparrow “[the platform] enables the WMM strategy and mission to celebrate individuals’ achievements while fostering a global running community.”

Key Figures

• Users

  33,000

• Challenges

  7-9 per month

• Miles tracked

  ~2 million per month

Problem Statement

World Marathon Majors was looking to migrate to a platform where they could be more in control of their data and processes. With 5-7 challenges running monthly, it was important for them to be in full control of the runner experience. A better integration with the existing WMM cloud and data infrastructure was essential in providing WMM runners a seamless experience across devices and services.

Partnering with MoveZenGo, WMM can provide a more integrated experience for their runners as part of their long-term user engagement strategy. According to Nicole, “Switching to MoveZenGo has made it so much easier for our support team to spot potential roadblocks ahead of time and handle user questions directly, making the whole experience smoother for everyone.”

Key Benefits

MoveZenGo offers a suite of baseline features, like leaderboards, map journeys, registration tools, and team challenges. We also provide customers with a fully customizable white-label mobile and web app to maintain brand consistency. With seamless integration with all major fitness trackers, MoveZenGo ensures a smooth and connected experience for users to track their progress with the devices they already love.

Additional benefits for WMM include:

• API access and integration with WMM cloud infrastructure
• Full self-service functionality for challenge admins and participants
• Advanced event and challenge management tools catering to WMM’s needs

This combination of features ensures a smooth, connected experience for users while giving administrators the tools they need to manage and customize their challenges effectively.

A Smooth Transition

World Marathon Majors needed to make the transition from their previous provider to the new platform with tight deadlines. In just a few months, MoveZenGo was able to facilitate the migration of all existing GRC users.

Central to the migration process were the migration manuals and tailor-made onboarding wizards we had provided for both participants and administrators. We provided extensive support during and after the migration to address any questions as they came up and guarantee that all data and processes were transferred accurately. Scott C. Scott, Technology Consultant for WMM, shared his positive experience of the migration, saying, “The support we received throughout the process made for a seamless transition. With real-time data syncing to our CRM, we’re now able to target runners with tailored messages, ensuring our communication is more relevant and impactful than ever.”

Additionally, our ongoing support allowed us to troubleshoot and resolve any challenges, ensuring the platform was fully functional and optimized quickly.

Here are just a few ways we were able to support the migration:

• Comprehensive onboarding guides: To ensure that both administrators and participants understand and can use MoveZenGo with ease and confidence, we created detailed migration guides for both types of users.
• User-friendly setup tools: We provided users with a migration wizard to provide step by step support to transition to the new platform without a hitch.
• Account continuity: For uninterrupted use and engagement with Global Run Club challenges, we provided direct integration with existing WMM accounts.

New Features

The migration brings a suite of enhanced features designed to foster engagement, improve accessibility, and create a more dynamic experience for users.

• Paid registration for premium events: Users now have access to exclusive, high-value experiences through paid event registration. This allows event organizers to offer even more customized challenges.
• Global Run Club monthly rankings: With the new leaderboard functionality, participants can now see how they stack up against their peers on both an individual and country-wide level. This fuels motivation, encourages friendly competition, and strengthens the global running community by connecting users across different regions.
• Friend challenges: To boost engagement and a sense of community among Global Run Club members, users can now create and join friend-based challenges. This gives users a fun way to stay accountable and celebrate achievements together.

Looking Ahead

The success of WMM’s migration to MoveZenGo is just the beginning of a promising partnership. Nicole shared her enthusiasm, saying, “We’ve defined a joint roadmap with prioritized improvements and new features planned for 2025, ensuring we continue to evolve and meet the needs of our users.” As part of this, we’re focused on enhancing the user experience by adding more social interaction features, such as likes and shares, to foster deeper connections among participants.

The MoveZenGo team is also working closely with WMM’s IT team towards a tighter integration with WMM accounts to further improve the overall experience.

Conclusion

In just six months, the MoveZenGo team worked with WMM and their IT team to complete the migration, opening the door to a meaningful transformation. Our integrated platform enhances the experience for Abbott World Marathon Majors and Global Run Club users by streamlining operations and boosting engagement. With further enhancements on the horizon, MoveZenGo is committed to addressing today’s needs while steadily evolving for the future.