Potatoes USA Strava Challenge Nearly Doubles Participation of NYC Marathon

More than 89,000 athletes around the world fueled their fall workouts with potatoes in Potatoes USA’s Power of 3 September Strava challenge—nearly twice as many participants as the New York City Marathon, which happened on November 5.

The Challenge: Athletes were challenged to track 180 minutes (3 hours) of movement on Strava, a leading platform for fitness tracking, from September 17-30. The Power of 3 Challenge was named for 3 hours of movement and offered 3 chances to win prizes for the 3 grams of plant-based protein in a 5.3-ounce serving of potatoes.

• Promoting Potatoes: Everyday athletes were incentivized to track their runs, walks, hikes, bike rides, and workouts on Strava for a chance to earn a potato-themed grand prize. Participants were also encouraged to follow Potato Goodness on Instagram and showcase their potato-fueled activities under the hashtags #StravaSpuds and #PotatoesPowerPeople for three chances to win additional prizes.
• Behind the Strategy: “We knew Strava, as the largest athletic community in the world, would be a great way to get the ‘Potatoes Fuel Performance’ message in front of so many athletes,” said Kayla Vogel, Senior Global Marketing Manager at Potatoes USA.

Participation:

• 89,438 global participants, with 88% of athletes completing the challenge
• 903,895 activities uploaded to Strava, including running, biking, walking, yoga, and more
• 3 million miles traveled during recorded workouts—enough to circle the earth more than 250 times!

Results:

• Nearly 50,000 first-time Team Potato challenge athletes
• 1,171 new members added to the Team Potato community
• Over 42,000 visitors to PotatoGoodness.com via the challenge, making it the third-largest traffic source from July-September—the challenge page was also the most visited for the website in September
• 6 million impressions (i.e., opportunities for people to see information about the challenge)
• Unique reach of over 1 million (i.e., individual people who saw information about the challenge)

More context: Strava shared that the 88% completion rate is “really strong” based on its benchmarks and feedback, adding, “These are awesome results.” Strava’s completion rate benchmark is 60%.