Case Study: How HOKA Blanketed the Olympic Marathon Trials without the Podium
From the desk of Running the Show
Athletes lined up on February 3rd to battle for a spot on the Olympic Marathon Team, but the brand wars started far earlier in the week. The national stage for American marathoning has become a place for brands in running to engage the masses in person and online and build brand affinity. It’s not only about who has the biggest pool or themed floaties—it’s a far more comprehensive (and expensive) strategy.
Opinion: The challenge of an event like Olympic Marathon Trials is connecting athlete, brand, the product, and consumer. The playbook isn’t the same, nor should it be, for each brand. For example, a brand like Lululemon may have an athlete in the field and a mass appeal (approx. 6.27% of marketshare as of Q3), but they may not choose to select Marathon Trials as a premier marketing event because the cost associated with producing a weekend of events and content, coupled with a potential lack of “newness” in products/athletes during the weekend, would outweigh any perceived bump in brand affinity or sales conversions. Likewise, A brand more focused on supporting their athletes at an event of this size, may also not chose to allocate the additional expenses, risk, and resources towards a massive commercial endeavor. Plainly stated: the Trials may be the Super Bowl for some brands, but not all.
It’s safe to say that this was HOKA’s Superbowl.
Photo: Citius Mag
HOKA deployed a blanket across Trials weekend to marry athletes and product to the brand and consumer BOTH in person/experientially and through digital storytelling. The comprehensiveness and execution can be credited both to the team at HOKA and through the partnerships they leveraged. Let’s look into each of these verticals to understand how they pulled it off.
Athletes
In Person:
Shakeout Run with NAZ Elite Athletes — While not featuring the marathoners toeing the line on race day, NAZ Elite Athletes Krissy Gear and Luis Grijalva joined the shakeout to increase facetime with participants and play a role in distributing shoes/promo items.
Prediction Show with Citius — Citius led a live show, which was also streamed, discussing the athletes to watch on race day and culminating with each host to pick their top three men and women finishers.
Digital:
Pre-Race and Race Day Photo Assets: HOKA shared stylized pre-race portraits captured by RHOAM Creative Studio with short bios of the NAZ Elite team to present the athletes to expect on race day. These portraits were also used by Citius Mag to announce their race day prediction content to also present athletes and message performance. NAZ Elite shared race day photos and shared race-day performances
Final Workout Video — a longer form video produced by Citius, which features HOKA NAZ Elite Athletes in their final tune up workout one month before the Trials. Deepens audience understanding of the athletes they’ll see during the weekend and messaging performance.
Humans of HOKA features — Leveraging content features on Futsum Zienasellassie and Aliphine Tuliamuk to align with HOKA’s #HumansofHOKA campaign they have been building for several month on social media platforms. Deepens audience understanding of an athlete they’ll see during the weekend and bolsters the values of the brand in the process.
Product Focus - Cielo X1
In Person:
FLYLAB - A futuristic storefront, staffed by cobalt blue jumpsuit-clad product specialists showing off the Cielo X1.
FLYZONE/Citius Mag Cafe - A branded homebase for content and events with Citius Mag as a partner.
Shakeout Run with NAZ Elite Athletes - A shakeout run from the FLYZONE that featured Cielo X1 tryons.
Fleet Feet Shakeout - A shakeout run from a local Fleet Feet featuring HOKA footwear (not Cielo X1).
Track Shack Shakeout - A shakeout run from a historic local running store featuring Cielo X1 tryons (which was referred to as an unnamed prototype due to embargoes).
Lake Eola Challenge - A weeklong challenge open to the public to take the fastest segment time around a local landmark for a chance to win shoes/gear (including the Cielo X1), which also created a digital footprint on Strava.
Digital:
Brand Social Content - Teaser video asset and launch video asset on HOKA Socials
Paid Social Content/Seeding - Sponsored Tiktok ad to shop and seeding to influencers/ambassadors showing unboxing and use across wide ranging geography
Earned Media - Endemic coverage from Runnersworld, Believe in the Run, Run Testers, etc.
Paid Media - harder to tell what paid spots are in play, but undoubtedly a strategy to get the story out.
Brand and Consumer Collision
In addition to the athlete stories and product launches, HOKA partnered with Citius Mag and RHOAM Creative Studio to create a truly immersive brand environment. Runners could examine a new shoe through the traditionally digestible means of shakeout runs and shoe demos, BUT they also had the ability to visit the fabricated lab-like environment that makes you feel like they unearthed some ungodly technology to put this shoe in front of you. Runners could engage with athletes and the competition aspect of Trials through live shows through the weekend, BUT they could also do this in a meticulously branded “Cafe.” When I say meticulous, I mean: branded aprons, diner mugs, trays, paper bags—EVEN THE CAFE BULLETIN BOARD HAD A WANTED AD FOR A LOST SUPER SHOE. This team as a whole created the Meow Wolf of the Marathon Trials—a completely immersive environment of brand that felt cohesive, all-encompassing, but somehow (and very intentionally) not corny.
Conclusion
HOKA saw the opportunity to execute on a premium racing product launch at (arguably) the premier American marathoning event of the year so far and coupled it with content partnerships, immersive environments, a meticulous attention to detail, and a BOATLOAD of MONEY to make it happen. While we can reflect on this execution in its entirety to say “the bar has just been raised,” it may be too early to crown a victor. HOKA’s efforts undoubtedly increased brand visibility, product awareness and educational opportunities, and brand affinity. We can only hope that this converts to record-breaking sales of the Cielo X1 and increased sales of their other training and racing shoes and apparel as well. After running quite the marathon of their own at Trials, it seems like the only missing piece of the puzzle for HOKA was a podium finish for one of their athletes. This may beg the question: Does the podium even matter when you go this big?