After many weeks in development, our new Run London campaign breaks today. It’s back and it’s the biggest yet. In fact, the 2005 Nike 10K will be the biggest running event the UK has ever seen. But this year’s Run London isn’t just a one-off race.

In addition to weekly training runs in nine locations around the capital and the Nike 10K events, Nike has organized a series of timed 5K runs to help people keep running for a whole twelve months.

The theme of this year’s campaign is “I will run a year” and is based on the idea that people are more likely to run if they not only set themselves a goal but, more importantly, they tell someone else about it; they make a pledge.

The brand statement “I will run a year” will be seen across London on poster sites, bus sides and tube ticket barriers along with a multitude of other commitments to run more often including “I will sweat bananas”, “I will take the stairs at Covent Garden” and “I will test positive for Rigatoni”. We always try to include local things particular to certain London areas, so watch out for ones like ‘I will give Uncle Bulgaria the heebie-jeebies’ at Wimbledon.

The Run London website www.runlondon.com will enable people to register for Run London (from Monday August 15th) and create their very own pledge using a ‘Pledge Maker’. They can further personalize it by uploading an image of themselves to the site and send their animated pledge virally to their friends. Nike will then broadcast the pledges that have been made in the Oxford Street window of NikeTown. The site also carries information on training runs, fitness advice, etc.

The digital bits of the campaign and the CRM programme were created by AKQA, media planning and buying is by MindShare.

Loads of people here at W+K worked on the campaign, with particular mention due to Kerry and Stuart, Beanie, Stuart, and Adam. And others too numerous to mention.

Time to get off your lardy arse and get running, London.

Some of our readers may remember the scientific survey last year that concluded that W+K’s Ben Walker was the world’s number one copywriter. We now have, in a new magazine called Styling Lard, a survey based on points accumulated from various creative awards shows over the last ten years. There’s a chart-busting array of  W+K talent in there. Unfortunately the magazine can’t spell Wieden + Kennedy but you can’t have everything.

The results are as follows:

In at number 3 with a bullet, our very own: Sean Thompson

At number 10, gone (to Ogilvy) but not forgotten: Richard Russell

At number 13, still up there: Ben Walker

At number 32, from W+K Amsterdam: Mark Hunter

At number 39, you have to watch the quiet ones: Kim Papworth

Lucky number 13: Tony Davidson

Sweet 16: Michael Russoff. (And I thought Michael was a writer, or singer-songwriter.)

At number 18, still in the top 20: Matt Gooden

Well done, chaps.