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With the New York City Marathon on Sunday, pavement-pounding is set to reach a high throughout the city. But during weekend mornings in major cities around the country, you\u2019d be hard-pressed to avoid crowds of runners getting their steps in together.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m in San Francisco any weekend morning, I cannot believe the number of running clubs that I\u2019m seeing,\u201d said Brooke Donberg, director of partnerships and activation at Clif Bar, which has sponsored multiple running events this year.<\/p>\n
The rising popularity of run clubs has helped transform the sport, once seen as a solitary act, into a social and social-media-ready activity. There are run clubs for dating, run clubs hosted by DJs like Diplo and John Summit, and run clubs specifically for marathons; Carey Pinkowski, executive race director of the Chicago Marathon, said he saw \u201chundreds of runners\u201d out and about on weekend mornings in the lead-up to the race earlier this month.<\/p>\n
As online and IRL communities continue to crop up around running, marketers are taking note, looking for ways to lace up their own metaphorical sneakers and hit the ground, well, running.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of brands are seeing the opportunity, certainly the bigger ones, of ways that they can tap into quite a diverse group of people in terms of both runners and spectators,\u201d Charlie Wade, chief client officer at VML Live and a runner himself who\u2019s done work for clients around several races, told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n
Full corrals<\/h2>\n
Running gained significant steam during the pandemic. The sport \u201chas always been popular, but niche,\u201d and when gyms closed, many people looking to stay active found they had few other options, Christine Burke, the chief commercial officer for New York Road Runners (NYRR), the nonprofit behind the NYC Marathon, said.<\/p>\n
That has led to surges in race sign-ups. While most NYRR races sold out about a month in advance in 2019, new races now typically fill up in a few hours, Burke said. The Boston 5K, which is held on Boston Marathon weekend, was at capacity in 21 minutes this year, according to Scott Stover, CMO of the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), the nonprofit that hosts the Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing demand that we just can\u2019t meet because of the restriction in terms of the size of our field,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That surge in participation is translating to sponsor interest, Burke said. A few weeks ahead of the New York City Marathon, floor space at the marathon expo was \u201cessentially sold out,\u201d she said, and this year, the marathon has six new official partners, including three non-endemic brands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing more and more interest in the non-endemic space, with brands seeing the running community as a trend in overall health and wellness, and wanting to find meaningful and authentic ways to engage,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n
Join the club<\/h2>\n
Some in the running space give run clubs partial credit for increasing interest in racing among participants and sponsors alike. Many running sponsors are drawn to the sport because of the extended timelines for connecting with athletes, but marathon sponsorships in particular typically hinge on one race day; run clubs can offer a \u201ctimeline extension\u201d to \u201ccomplement the type of big, tentpole investment\u201d marketers make in official partnerships, said Zack Sugarman, SVP at Two Circles, which counts Ironman as a client and works with brands on endurance and marathon partnerships.<\/p>\n
Sports brands including Clif Bar and Nike are already involved with run clubs, but many marketers are still trying to figure out how to best get a foot in the door, according to Stephanie Arpaia, VP of brand marketing at Excel Sports Management, which has worked on running activations for clients including the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) and Clif Bar.<\/p>\n
Bank of America, the presenting sponsor of the Boston Marathon and title sponsor of the Chicago Marathon, is \u201cstill working through\u201d ideas to supplement those activations, according to Brad Ross, who leads global marketing partnerships for the bank. The marketing team at Citizens, which became the official bank of NYRR in 2023, has also \u201cstarted to think about\u201d run clubs, Head of Marketing Lori Dillon said.<\/p>\n
From start to finish<\/h2>\n
One surefire way that marathon sponsors are engaging with runners and race spectators is through branded cheer zones and other signage lining the courses on race days. Nike, which hosts its own races and has official partnerships with marathons like Portland and Chicago, places cheer zones and \u201ccheeky\u201d billboards where runners might need a boost the most, Seema Simmons, VP and general manager of Nike Running for North America, told us. At the Chicago Marathon, one bright red billboard along the course read \u201cShut up, brain\u201d; at last year\u2019s New York City Marathon, signage at the Staten Island Ferry, which runners used to get to the start line, read \u201cRunning is awful. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
HSS, which has been a partner of NYRR since 2009, has shown up at races with cheer zones, hydration zones, and billboards, according to Jess Lefkowitz, an assistant VP who works on the hospital\u2019s sports partnerships. The activations are meant to increase brand awareness and trust, and HSS is seeing those results, she said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t see us going anywhere anytime soon,\u201d Lefkowitz said. \u201cIt\u2019s continued to help us build equity in the wellness and performance spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Awareness is also the goal for Citizens, Dillon said, and the brand clocked a 14% increase in consideration among New York-area runners from before the marathon in 2023 to after the marathon in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt blew me away, quite frankly, how [much] that moved,\u201d Dillon said. \u201cWhat that meant was you couldn\u2019t miss us.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many brands, charities are also a key component of marathon sponsorships: HSS and Citizens both work with NYRR to honor runners who race on behalf of charities and community\u00a0members making an impact,\u00a0and for Bank of America, being associated with fundraising is a significant benefit of its marathon sponsorship, Ross said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes beyond just the activation on the ground, which we do, which is table stakes,\u201d Ross said. \u201cIt goes beyond just showing up with our logo\u2026The ability to drive and raise revenue and some money for the charities is a big piece of the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next mile<\/h2>\n
Foot races give marketers access to captive audiences who are actually participating in the sport, as well as millions of spectators, making racing sponsorships fairly unique in the sports sponsorship space. But marathons may still lag behind some other sports when it comes to reaching TV audiences<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still not quite there yet,\u201d Arpaia said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see some growth there as far as running events picking up more cultural mindshare or just being more relevant in culture\u2026I\u2019m looking out for, in the next five, 10, years, do we now start to open up an even a bigger lens as far as reaching more consumers that way?\u201d<\/p>\n
Reach isn\u2019t always the biggest KPI for running sponsors, making TV viewership less of an issue for some brands. Simmons said her team at Nike is more concerned with creating products and experiences designed for runners, given the brand\u2019s deep roots in the sport. For Bank of America, running is about the \u201cability to go very deep\u201d with a community, Ross said; the brand can get big reach elsewhere, like with its FIFA World Cup sponsorship, he added.<\/p>\n
Even without the level of TV reach traditionally associated with major sports, demand for in-person participation seems to be enough to fuel growing interest in running sponsorships, and the need for speed (or just endurance) is showing no signs of slowing down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would carry bibs in my pocket [on] race morning and hand them out,\u201d Pinkowski said. \u201cNow I get stopped in the grocery store and asked about access to the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Update 10\/30\/25: This story has been updated with additional details about brands honoring runners.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\nRead the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the New York City Marathon on Sunday, pavement-pounding is set to reach a high throughout the city. But during weekend mornings in major cities around the country, you\u2019d be hard-pressed to avoid crowds of runners getting their steps in together. \u201cIf I\u2019m in San Francisco any weekend morning, I cannot believe the number of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\n
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