A Bit Of Everything Lately

Aravaipa released a film around the back of the pack at the Cocodona 250 - the people fighting cutoffs to stay alive. It’s an under appreciated part of our community whose stories of resilience resonate with as many (more?) people as the hero stories of the winners. We come out to golden hour at all of the big races and tears are shed when these moments tug at our heart strings yet, we rarely see it told in brand marketing. Why is this? I haven’t seen the film but I’m looking forward to it. It debuted this past weekend in Flagstaff and has a short tour scheduled.

A fat-tailed distribution is a probability distribution where outliers occur much more frequently than predicted by a normal bell-shaped distribution, giving its tails a “fatter,” heavier appearance on a graph. This indicates a higher chance of large gains or losses.

If you don’t allow for the outliers you leave home runs on the table and drastically limit your upside. For more on the fat-tailed distribution of marketing listen to Ogilvy ad exec Rory Sutherland wax poetic on the idea.

Bandit dropped a short poetic film that we can all relate to in conjunction with the release of their spring line. I thought it really captured the experience of us ritual runners. Very well done and I want everyone to see it.

“My legs warmup my mind.”

Hoka is hiring a Creative Director for its North American business. While this position defers to the messaging coming from Global Creative it will have a massive impact over the marketing assets and storytelling across everything we see in North America from retail marketing to films/photography and Hoka’s long list of event partnership activations. I’d love to see someone amazing in this role that can really be a steward for the brand within the community.

Hylo is hiring a Head of Marketing. Challenger brands are the real deal in running and this industry loves to embrace them. Like Nnormal, the London-based brand has sustainability at its core but goes far beyond that with its messaging and performance goals. From what I can tell, this role will enable and uplift some ambitious storytelling plans with a focus on road running business in the US market.

There’s been a lot of energy around ACG’s very orange launch in Italy - from the train to the indoor dirt course. They generated a lot of press but it seems to me most was paid vs earned in the name of flash and sparkle. They spent big money and brought along an audience of athletes/influencers/media. There was a lot of glitter, so to speak. What did it mean though? What did it add to the Olympic moment? What does it say about ACG’s POV?

I do think the train was creative as it pertains to the Olympics and the physical transportation required between Milan/Cortina. It’s an idea we’ve seen to a less flashy degree by Brooks with buses running from the Geneva airport to Chamonix in August. That being said, I don’t think the ACG train actually carried regular passengers from Milan to the mountains like the Brooks buses. Imagine the earned media potential there as thousands of passengers from all over the world share their experiences to friends back home. That would have been the win. Instead it seems the train idea was just dropped alongside the Olympics for athletes/influencers/media to garner mainstream eyeballs. “While you’re all talking about Italy, look over here at the big bright orange thing!” A glitter bomb.

Then there’s the indoor dirt track in Milan which confused me more. Why? Isn’t this “All Conditions” Gear? Now we’re indoors? Was there a race? What did it mean? Was anyone even having fun? Only 26 selected people were allowed to run it. Was it additive to the community/sport at all? If there was a unique POV coming out of that event it missed me. From the linked hypebeast article, “the event reimagines the freedom of the outdoors as a psychological cage” WTF? That’s not what it’s all about.

These stunts aside, ACG has upped the prize money game at some smaller races that are more additive to our community (Gorge, Broken Arrow) and that is fantastic. I’m looking forward to seeing how they choose to show up in these moments when the lights are turned down. It will be a better tell of their intention. Maybe most importantly in all of this, Jennifer Lichter smashed Black Canyon. She’s amazing and seeing ACG support her is a huge win with more real meaning than an orange train and a “psychological cage”.

Are we at an inflection point in the growth of running? Are we hitting the in-fighting stage where civilized behavior has fallen apart? Is Brice’s unprovoked attack on Nash/Currently the inflection point on our Lord of the Flies inspired arc? Even Max Joliffe is now taking shots at the meme guys that are the reason many of us know of him in the first place. Are there just so many influencers, crews, brands, etc that we are fencing off spaces as “ours” and yelling at each other about it? Are we that saturated? Or is it just a couple disgruntled people?

Share