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what marketing strategies they employed for promoting female road running events,
attracting female consumers, and what’s the relationship within road running actors.
Consequently, my second specific research question is as follows:
RQ2: What types of marketing strategies have road running-related actors (including
road running magazines, organizers, and sporting goods manufacturers) employed to
attract female consumers?
3.2 Methods
The main core of the current study is women’s representation in the media,
especially with respect to road running; therefore, via discourse analysis, I investigated
how the media constructs female images during road running, and by detailed
comparison and analysis, I sought to draw conclusions beyond the discourses and the
features of road running publications.
However, studying road running publications alone cannot depict the whole
picture of female road running in Taiwan. The appeal of road running races is apparent
in its capacity to attract high-profile corporate sponsors, international corporations, and
the support of government and celebrities at events across Taiwan, which means that
more actors were involved. Accordingly, I followed up with in-depth interviews with
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road running-related actors, including a road running magazine editor, sporting goods
manufacturers, and road running organizers.
(1) Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis has been frequently used to interpret “social artifacts” (游美惠
You Mei-Hui, 2000), which are constructed by society; therefore, it is worth using
discourse analysis to answer the first research question about how road running media
represents women.
Using the keyword “road running” to search three major online bookstores
(Bo-Ke-Lai, Eslite, and Kingstone) on November 1, 2015, I found 390 books and 201
magazines at Bo-Ke-Lai, 51 Chinese books at Eslite, and 219 books and 50 magazines
at Kingstone. When I deleted the repeated or irrelevant ones9, there were 52 road
running publications, including books and magazines. To obtain a vivid picture of how
media content represents women in road running publications, I compared two genres
of road running publications, one for the general public and the other specifically for
women, aiming to make a contrast to highlight the features of female road running
publications. The books chosen for the analysis were based on their selling rank at the
9 For example, children books, fiction novel, marketing magazines, tour guide books, etc.
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Bo-Ke-Lai online bookstore. There were six road running books for the general public
and four women’s road running books in the top 10. Considering the publication date
and content, I rejected two books. The famous runner Gin Oy had two books in the top
10; one was Travel Running! (旅跑．日本：歐陽靖寫給大家的跑步旅遊書)and the
other was Run! Girls Run(歐陽靖寫給女生的跑步書：連我都能跑了，妳一定也可
以！), ranking number three. Though Travel Running! was ranked number 1, it was
published recently (September 2, 2015), and compared with Run! Girls Run, it stressed
travel in Japan via participating in Japanese marathons, which made it unsuitable for
the analysis. Therefore, I chose Run! Girls Run as Gin Oy’s representative work.
Another book, The Craziness of 51.5 Kilometers (51.5 公里的瘋狂：賈永婕的三鐵美
麗人生), was written by Taiwanese artist Chia Yung-Chieh (賈永婕). It ranked number
nine in sales and mainly addressed her iron girl triathlon experience. Because the topic
involved more than road running, I dropped it from the analysis, leaving three road
running books for the general public, three for female as the analysis samples.
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Table 2: Sampling female road running books
Cover Title Author Year Publisher Ranking
(Bo-Ke-Lai)
Table 3: Sampling general road running books The Running
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To select magazines for the analysis, I used the keyword “running” at the
Bo-Ke-Lai online bookstore, obtaining 239 results. I narrowed down the context to Chinese
magazines since I focused on the Taiwan road running phenomenon, leaving only 153
results were left. I concentrated on running magazines, not just a few pages on running
topics within a magazine. Hence, Urban Runners, Running Master, Running Life(跑步
生活), Runnnn(跑跑步), and iRun (愛跑客) qualified as options. Regarding the number
of issues, Urban Runners and Running Master both published three issues in 2014 and
2015, and iRun(愛跑客) only had one issue, too few for the sample. In contrast,
Running Life( 跑 步 生 活 )and Runnnn( 跑 跑 步 )printed eleven and seven issues, respectively, enough to provide an adequate sample. Interestingly, Running Life(跑步
生活)and Runnnn(跑跑步)have two very different styles. Three issues of Running
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Life(跑步生活) stressed women-related topics, whereas the Runnnn(跑跑步)agenda
was more general, providing first-hand marathon news and its articles did not have a
particular gender preference. Therefore, for Running Life(跑步生活), I chose three
issues (one, four, and a special issue) that addressed women’s topics, and for Runnnn(跑
跑步), I chose three bestselling issues (four, five, and six) at the Bo-Ke-Lai online
bookstore for the analysis. I also aimed to compare the two magazines.
Table 4: Sampling road running magazines
Cover Title Volume Year Publisher
4,5,6 2014 Dotmoremedia
達摩媒體
(2) In-depth interviews
In the literature review, it became clear that the media is part of the social structure
that constructs mainstream ideologies; many actors are involved in fanning the flames
of female road running. Road running, as a participatory sport, has the potential to
gather thousands of runners at the same time and same place, thereby generating
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astonishing economic scales and attracting the attention of diverse sponsors. As a result,
I intend to investigate the types of marketing strategies that are employed by road
running related actors: sporting goods manufacturers, road running organizers, and
magazine editors.
Since 2011, sporting goods manufacturers have been enthusiastically involved in
holding road running races to promote their own sports products. Therefore, a trend that
began with Nike has expanded to include Mizuno, Puma, and New Balance.
Accordingly, sporting goods manufacturers are key actors in the road running industry.
This is especially the case for Nike, which created the first female-only road running
event in Taipei. Although Mizuno was a bit late in deciding to hold women’s road
running races from 2013, there is no doubt that Nike and Mizuno are the two most
representative sporting goods manufacturers in Taiwan’s female road running industry.
Nevertheless, it has been difficult to contact sporting goods manufacturers during this
research. In cases when I did manage to get into contact with them, they directly asked
the marketing companies who arranged their road race events to be my interviewees.
In this study, therefore, road running organizers speak in place of sporting goods
manufacturers.
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Through my friends and professors’ introductions, from January to April 2016, I
interviewed four marketing company staff members (interviewees RO1-RO4) and one
road running magazine editor (interviewee MO1). Nike has delegated Taiwan’s Nike
female road running work to several companies. WongHe PR & Marketing (旺合公關)
take charge of public relations and all media communications, and Flight International
Marketing(展逸行銷公司) deals with practical issues related to the route, such as
advance running route planning, contacting sponsors, and servicing runners. I
interviewed the manager of WongHe PR & Marketing (interviewee RO1) and the
director of Flight International Marketing (interviewee RO3), both of whom have much
experience in organizing Nike’s female road races. For its Lady’s Running work,
Mizuno has appointed Delicacy Integrated Marketing (驊采整合行銷). I interviewed
one of their managers (interviewee RO4), who was responsible for the 2015 Mizuno
Lady’s Running event in Kaohsiung and the 2016 Mizuno Lady’s Running event in
Taipei. AimHit (精鍊公關)is another professional sports marketing company under the
Elite Public Relations Group(精英公關集團). In this study, I also interviewed their
general manager (Interviewee RO2), who has a great understanding of launching
marketing campaigns for road running events. He tends to take a third party’s
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perspective, giving objective comments on the female road running events organized
by Nike and Mizuno. The interview outline focuses on three parts: when the interviewee
became involved in the industry; his/her opinions about women joining road running
events; marketing strategies for women’s road running events; and why female
customers are targeted. Of course, different interviewees were asked slightly different
questions, but the questions mainly addressed how gender is taken into consideration.
See Table 5 for basic information about the organizers of road running that were
interviewed.
I considered an interview with a road running magazine editor to be necessary if I
wanted to know more about the media content side, and gain information beyond that
provided by the road running magazines. Running Life stresses more women-related
topics than other road running magazines. I interviewed one of the three main editors,
who is a senior member of Running Life (see Table 6). In the interview, my focus was
on how road running magazines select their content, whether they have special gender
preferences, and their cooperation with sporting goods manufacturers. The interviewees
are given pseudonyms to maintain confidentiality, and any identifying information
about themselves is withheld. The interview questions are listed in Appendix A.
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Table 5: Interviewee basic information: road running organizers Interviewee
No.
Company Position Experience Interview Date
(Year/ Month)
RO2 AimHit Sports Marketing and Communication
RO3 Flight International Marketing (Responsible for Nike’s
marketing)
Director 2011-2016 Nike women road running, Standard Chartered Marathon, Gaomei Wetland Marathon
2016/03
RO4 Delicacy Integrated Marketing (Responsible for Mizuno’s Lady Running)
Manager 2015 Mizuno Lady’s Running (Kaosiung) 2016 Mizuno Lady’s Running (Taipei)
2016/04
Table 6: Interviewee basic information: media producer Interviewee
No.
Company Position Experience Interview Date
(Year/ Month) M1 Running Life Magazine Editor 2013- 2016 Running Life
Magazine editor
2016/03
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Chapter Four: Results and Analysis