For Michelin Tires, Oliver Schrott Kommu­nika­tion staged the world's most rigorous compar­a­tive tire test drive — the Michelin Tire Marathon. Some 222 end-users in twelve cars were invited to complete an aggre­gate of more than 222,222 kilo­me­ters in a contest for a first prize of 30,000 euros.

While the entrants were excited by the occa­sion and the prospect of competing for attrac­tive prizes, the tire industry looked upon the event as an unprece­dented compar­ison that was unique in scale, dura­tion and design. It enabled Michelin impres­sively to demon­strate the high quality and dura­bility of its car tires. The inde­pen­dent auto­mo­tive certi­fier GTÜ oversaw the proceed­ings and crit­i­cally exam­ined both the methods and the results. Its over­sight was crit­ical to ensure press confi­dence and facil­i­tate the subse­quent reporting of the results via the classic commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels.

The marathon gave rise to two commu­ni­ca­tion bene­fits. First, and coin­ciding with the winter tire sales season, nation­wide media coverage of the event and Michelin tires' dura­bility. And second, an inten­sive and authentic discus­sion between passionate partic­i­pants and the online commu­nity of car enthu­si­asts in forums and blogs on the internet before, during and after the event.

Michelin's manage­ment came up with the spec­tac­ular idea of a Tire Marathon to demon­strate the dura­bility of its winter tires. The result was unequiv­ocal: the French maker's tires achieved 38 per cent more mileage than their rivals.

www.autozeitung.de on 28.11.2007

It was a SUPER-SUPER-SUPER event. Many thanks to Michelin and the OSK team for an excep­tion­ally successful expe­ri­ence.

It's quite simply ... (please excuse the vernac­ular) SEXY! Michelin is hoisting a fantastic event here — the only thing that beats this is flying.

A Tire Marathon driver in the forum at www.adven­ture­pro­jekt.de