One Step Closer: How Standard Chartered Went From Title Sponsor to the Hero of Its Own Marathon
After 13 years as title sponsor of the Mumbai Marathon, Standard Chartered's role had shrunk to a logo among many. ibs Fulcro moved the conversation from performance to philosophy, turning real audience dreams into a real-time microsite, four community films, and a campaign hashtag that trended above the event's own official tag.
At a glance
Client: Standard Chartered (Banking & Financial Services)
Problem: After 13 years as title sponsor, Standard Chartered's real role in the Mumbai Marathon had shrunk to just another logo among many, with no distinct brand voice in the event.
Solution: One Step Closer: shifting from performance messaging to real audience dreams, told through a real-time microsite, four community films, and a campaign hashtag.
Result: Share of conversations on race day: 60%+
ibs Fulcro's role: Brand Campaign
The Problem
In the past 13 years, Standard Chartered had become an integral part of the Mumbai Marathon. But with each edition, as the number of associated brands went up, the bank's role was slowly shrinking to that of just the title sponsor, present on every banner but absent from the actual conversation. The challenge was to reimagine that role and speak to the audience in a way that was salient during the marathon itself, but also had a life beyond it.
The Insight
ibs Fulcro identified a pattern across every marathon sponsor's communication: all of it focused on performance, where reaching the finish line was the end goal. Standard Chartered needed to stand for something bigger, something it could genuinely own well beyond the event itself.
While the marathon is about moving toward a finishing line, the campaign made the conversation about individual beginnings instead. That reframing is where One Step Closer was born, moving the brand's role from performance to philosophy.
The Idea: Celebrate the First Step, Not the Finish Line
People often hesitate to take the first step toward a real goal. One Step Closer gave people a platform to talk about their dreams, and celebrated the moment they actually acted on one. Using digital films, on-ground activations, and influencers, the campaign urged people to announce their goals and upload a picture of themselves taking their first step toward it.
The format was simple enough to be adopted widely, and stories began pouring in as people shared their own dreams and aspirations. Every submission was auto-discovered and showcased in real time on the campaign's own microsite, onestepcloser.co.in.
Turning Audience Stories Into the Brand's Own Steps
The submitted stories were analysed to select a real theme every week, and the brand then took its own first step toward the dreams of its audience, each one built into its own named film. The Smart Bus-Stop turned Mumbai's first connected bus-stop into a tool that let commuters ask it anything about their commute. The Happy Footpath painted a hopscotch grid onto a real sidewalk, giving pedestrians an actual reason to use it. The Deserving Deliveryman gave a motorised cycle to a gas-cylinder delivery worker, one of the city's most physically demanding and least visible jobs.
A fourth film, released under #OneStepForEducation, told the story of Ram Subramanian, founder of the Green Project, and the brand's own step toward correcting an old practice, made in association with WASHE (Water Sanitation Hygiene Education), a real community sanitation and hygiene initiative.
Why these four subjects mattered more than a generic brand film could: a bus-stop, a footpath, a delivery worker, and a hygiene educator are not typically what a bank's marathon sponsorship talks about. Each one was chosen because it was the direct, traceable answer to a real story an actual audience member had submitted that week, not a theme picked in a boardroom.
Real Stories, Real Replies
The campaign's Twitter presence responded directly to individual submissions rather than broadcasting at the audience. In one real exchange, the brand's account replied to a user's own #OneStepCloser story: “@Trendulkar, your #OneStepCloser story inspired us to take a step too,” attaching a short film made in direct response to that person's submission.
On the day of the Mumbai Marathon itself, held on 15 January 2017, every individual who had shared a story received a personalised video depicting what their specific story had helped the campaign achieve.
Earned Coverage
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| YouTube | Two of the campaign's four films made YouTube's popular/trending upload list |
| National & digital press | The Times of India, The Huffington Post, Mashable, The Logical Indian, StoryPick, Your Story |
| Social | Campaign hashtag #OneStepCloser trended above the event's own official hashtag, #SCMM2017, on race day |
Source: campaign video, ibs Fulcro / Standard Chartered.
The single clearest proof the strategy worked. Standard Chartered's own campaign hashtag outranking the marathon's official event hashtag, on the marathon's own race day, is direct evidence the brand had genuinely moved from being a name on a banner to owning the actual conversation.
The Results
The campaign earned over 60% share of all conversations happening on race day, generated more than 175 million impressions, and sustained more than 25 cumulative hours of organic trend time. Combined video views across the campaign's films exceeded 10 million.
Why This Matters Beyond One Campaign
The underlying move, refusing to compete with every other sponsor's banner for attention, and instead building a genuinely different reason for the audience to talk about the brand, is what let Standard Chartered take back a conversation it had been steadily losing over 13 years. Turning the audience's own submitted stories into the brand's actual creative output, rather than using them as research for a separately written script, is what made the resulting films feel earned rather than opportunistic.
Frequently asked questions
A campaign built by ibs Fulcro for Standard Chartered's sponsorship of the Mumbai Marathon, moving the brand's role from title sponsor to owning the event's actual conversation. It invited people to announce a personal dream and share a photo of their first step toward it, then built the brand's own content directly from those real submissions.
As more brands became associated with the Mumbai Marathon over the years, Standard Chartered's role had narrowed to that of the title sponsor, present but not actually part of the conversation. The challenge was to find a role that was relevant during the event and had a life beyond it.
The campaign's microsite, which auto-discovered and displayed audience-submitted #OneStepCloser stories in real time. The site is no longer available.
The Smart Bus-Stop, about Mumbai's first connected bus-stop that answered commuter questions; The Happy Footpath, a hopscotch-painted sidewalk encouraging pedestrian use; The Deserving Deliveryman, which gave a motorised cycle to a gas-cylinder delivery worker; and a fourth film under #OneStepForEducation, featuring Ram Subramanian of the Green Project in partnership with the WASHE community hygiene initiative.
The campaign earned over 60% share of all conversation on race day, generated more than 175 million impressions, sustained over 25 cumulative hours of organic trend time, and exceeded 10 million combined video views. The campaign hashtag #OneStepCloser trended above the event's own official hashtag, #SCMM2017, on race day.
Yes. The brand's social accounts replied directly to individual #OneStepCloser submissions with short films made in response, and every contributor received a personalised video on marathon day showing what their specific story had helped the campaign achieve.