Running Smoothly: How We Repurposed Strava to Build Trust With Our Clients

Have you used Strava to record a run? 

Has Fitbit ever counted your steps? 

In the ongoing quest to improve our systems, Senior Distribution Manager George Rennie reflects on using tracking apps responsibly to keep track of our Street Team.  

Every week at Mobius print distro HQ, we run into problems, such as: how to compete with those aggressively friendly charity street fundraisers, how to differentiate between the three different Cinderellas we promoted over Christmas, and, most importantly, how to convince clients that when we say a hand-to-hand flyering shift has gone amazingly, we mean it. 

Thankfully, the brilliantly interconnected hive mind of the Mobius strip is highly adept at solving problems, always looking for ways to better reach the right audiences, activate print materials, and effectively communicate what, how and why we do what we do. (If you aren’t sure, head over to this page for clarification.)  

One of the main challenges with print distribution is the question of trust. How can you as a producer, artist or marketing professional be sure that your posters and flyers have gone where we say they have? As standard, we provide photos of all poster and flyer drop to businesses in situ, and a photo and written report for every hand-to-hand session. Now, I can't pretend that no individuals on our team have ever cheated on their H2H feedback. In fact, our regular spot checks have revealed more than one occasion on which a sneaky staff member has thought they could get away with taking a picture of themselves on-site and passing this off as a ‘job done’. Needless to say, these poor sods ended up getting the chop, and are probably now scrubbing grime from toilet tiles with a toothbrush somewhere — though that’s not our concern. What we do care about is making sure we work with good people we can trust, and over the years, we’ve grown savvy to the signs of a dodgy dealer, and refined who we keep on our books. But no system is foolproof. 

We've been pondering how to tighten the screws of our street team’s management, and last year pooled our energies into finding a better way of keeping tabs on them when they are out and about on shift. We tried family tracking apps — though the interface always felt a bit too domestic (and invasive). We looked at Clockify, who wanted to charge us an extortionate rate to use their geo-tracking add-on. The answer, as with many of life’s seemingly intractable problems, came in the form of a silly joke. ‘Why don’t we use Strava?’ At first we laughed, but soon realised it might actually be something worth trying. After all, half the team had used it, it allows you to track people’s locations within a certain timeframe, and the privacy settings mean we could keep all this out of the public eye. After consulting with the street team and trialling it with a select few, we discovered that it is not only a familiar, but also a fun and easy-to-use interface, that allows our team to show they are where they say they are for the duration of a shift. 

History is full of examples of technology being reappropriated for different uses: gunpowder evolved out of a Chinese healing elixir, post-it notes came from a batch of uselessly weak glue, and Viagra was initially used to treat angina. I can’t speak to the benefits of the last of these, but as with other historical reinventions, we’ve found a different — and dare we say better? — purpose for the app. Sure, we love initiatives like Franco Manca’s ‘Map My Pizza Run’ campaign, and anything that gets people off the sofa and onto the track is a bonus. But our use of Strava means we can bolster the strength of our business offering, practically guaranteeing the work is being delivered while allowing our team to feedback in a more immediate, friendly and genuine way. 

With so much technology out there, finding your own ways to use it in alternative ways may yield better managerial solutions than buying or building yet another complex app. From our perspective, repurposing Strava this way has given us the satisfaction of knowing that creativity and innovation can exist without breaking the bank, and that the interconnectedness of digital life can be a source for positive change, avoiding punitive surveillance measures, and keeping our client and staff relationships running smoothly. 

If you’re interested in chatting more about our Distribution  campaigns please do get in touch. 

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