Australia’s largest Marathon, The Medibank Melbourne Marathon Festival will introduce Virtual Race Bags at this year’s event on October 13.

Making its debut in Australia, Virtual Race Bags present a fully-integrated online platform where sponsors can provide participants with relevant, high quality offers in a digital, mobile-friendly manner.

The Marathon will be the first Australian event to introduce Virtual Race Bags.

Virtual Race Bags enable a more efficient and cost effective method of promoting products and services to a mass audience. Delivering sponsor deals, offers and messages in a tailored manner that can be customised at varying events.

Founded in 2010, the team at Virtual Race Bags set out to significantly improve the traditional race pack, seeking to enhance the experience for both the participant and the sponsor.

Operations director at the Medibank Melbourne Marathon Festival, Ben Muldoon, believes by introducing the Virtual Race Bags as part of the event, sponsors are able to better communicate with the large cross section of participants in a measurable and immediate manner.

“The Virtual Race Bags platform will be a terrific value-add for our sponsors and participants, it provides our participants with relevant, high quality offers from our sponsors in a digital, mobile- friendly manner. It also helps us expand our efforts to minimize the event’s impact on the environment.”

President and co-founder of Virtual Race Bags, Gary Schwake, is delighted to launch the digital platform in Australia with The Medibank Melbourne Marathon Festival.

“We could not be more excited to launch in Australia with the Medibank Melbourne Marathon Festival, the event has grown over recent years to in excess of 32,000 participants making it one of the premier race events in Australia. We look forward to helping advance their digital and environmental initiatives.”