An iPhone With Legs Plans to Run

[nandagopal]

In what might be one of the sweatiest advertising efforts this year, Jason Jacobs, who makes the mobile application RunKeeper, plans to run the Boston Marathon on Monday dressed as an iPhone.

Mr. Jacobs, who has plantar fasciitis, has been training for only three weeks and managed to snag an official entry slot just a couple of weeks ago after a desperate Twitter post.

Still, he is confident about the race, and about his costume, a breathable stretch-Lycra getup that shows an iPhone screen with the RunKeeper application on it.

The app tracks runners' distances and speeds, and it has been downloaded more than 300,000 times from iTunes — there is a free ad-supported version, and an ad-free one, with extra features like audio updates, that costs $9.99. Still, Mr. Jacobs, the sole employee of the app's parent company, FitnessKeeper, says he isn't rolling in money.

"Every dollar we put into this is a dollar less that we put into developing a product," he said, suddenly laughing, and perhaps realizing that this costume — which required a designer, vendors and a silk-screen printer — was a rather expensive stunt.

The idea did not come from him, but from the students of a social media marketing class at Emerson College in Boston. (The course's professor is a high school buddy of Mr. Jacobs's.)

"We want this campaign that we pulled together to spread virally through the Web," Mr. Jacobs said.

On Friday, Mr. Jacobs posted a video the students had created at runkeeper.com/marathon and on YouTube, showing preparation for the race. On Monday, the class members will fan out along the course with video cameras and marketing material, then put together another video.

Mr. Jacobs has a plan to finish.

"I am going to carbo-load the night before the race," he said.