RUNNING IS THE NEW COOL

©Max Menning

Community building, self-optimization, digital gadgets and lifestyle aspiration, all targeted on the mass market. As an amateur sport, running combines every aspect of creating brand relations in a modern way and serves as perfect role model for other sports categories.

For some the word elicits feelings of excitement, for most it sounds like a chore. Like reading a book or meditation, on the surface it appears a solitary activity only for those with great willpower and spare time. However, in recent years, this old school sport has experienced a revival among amateur athletes, and brands are responding accordingly. Today, these workouts have nothing to do with mere “jogging”, but have been turned into a new way of life, helping to make running cool again.

Not only the running environment, the competitions and the number of runners are different today, but also the running business behind all this has changed drastically in recent years. Running is growing in cultural relevance and the industry’s approach to activewear has changed significantly. Customers are coming to expect more sophisticated running apparel and the market have shifted with this,” adds Matt Taylor, founder and owner of running brand Tracksmith. New running companies are entering this market and existing brands, which have had nothing to do with running until today, are trying to gain a foothold in this segment, e.g. sustainable sneaker label Veja has recently launched its own running shoes. The boundaries between clothing for sports and leisure are increasingly becoming blurred, and manufacturers responding by designing products that helping urban runners’ feel and look good during the run as well as while enjoying the espresso after the work out.

“Running has seen a cultural shift over the last five years. Now more than ever, you see running offering an opportunity for people to get offline, connect with others and challenge themselves. Running is an incredibly simple sport, but it can have a huge impact on people’s lives,” explains Matt Taylor. Claire Kent, founder and co-owner of Iffley Road, another British label that offers “slow fashion for fast running and anyone with an active lifestyle,” says: “Our customers run to escape, to search, to think. They run for the journey, not for the finish line, they are people who run to slow down.” Nicklas Fenger of Danish label Saysky, founded in Copenhagen in 2013, says about this new passion: “Running is probably one of the most accessible sports with the lowest entry requirements in terms of fitness level and equipment. You just need a pair of trainers and off you go.” John Hansen, creative director and owner of running label DOXA, continues: “Running is an easy sport to take part in; no need to book sessions and so on. Now, with a focus on a healthy lifestyle and with people who are always busy, running is the perfect match.” The burgeoning drive for self-improvement, the concern about our own appearance and well-being, which are increasingly determining our lives, are definitely one factor driving people. But most importantly: “Running has no age,“ according to Hansen from DOXA. And so, not only hip, young runners are involved in all running events, but all age groups.

Running has reached more than USD 33 billion in market size according to the NPD Group, a US-based market research company, with outdoor sports such as cycling and hiking also showing strong signs of growth. It offers the opportunity to big names such as Nike, Adidas or Asics or core running specialists such as On, Brooks or Saucony to explore this niche even more deeply. Complementing the market, a wide array of new labels, such as Ryzon, FAR, Tracksmith and Saysky, understand running as a combination of tough workouts and cool lifestyle. What they all have in common: it is pretty cool to wear the gear and shoes on the field and off the track, too. Just as Lululemon and Outdoor Voices made yoga pants a sporty status symbol to show what community you belong to, wearing your high-end running shoes and gear in the street has the same effect. In order to better understand the market dynamics, Brooks actually set out and hired Ideo, the Palo Alto design firm famous for creating the original Apple mouse, to help answer a simple question: Why do people run? They were faced with people running for the love of running vs. someone that is running for sake of it. The latter, Brooks hadn’t considered as a customer before. Brooks had been so focused on designing shoes for avid runners that the entire athleisure, sneakers-to-work trend had passed it by.

For decades runners were predominantly male, wore neon-colored apparel and off-the-peg shoes, training with little notice. “When we launched On as a company there was a clear and fixed point of view about what a good pair of running shoes was like. Essentially all shoes on the market had the same construction and also looked so similar you could not tell them apart,” says On’s co-founder Caspar Copetti. “As a customer you used to get a shoe practically ‘prescribed’ for you, and the consultations in stores resembled a discussion of symptoms with the doctor. On, and other innovative brands, have completely changed this. Today, there are different technologies side by side and the individual experience of the runner is at the center,” says Coppetti of On. In addition, ”the topic of sustainability will continue to increase in importance,” adds Brüggen of Adidas. “We focus on producing running wear that lasts a lifetime, so provided we can guarantee that, we’ll ensure that the Iffley Road customer receives an amazing combination of quality and functional style,” says Kent.

In addition to the desire for self-optimization, a healthy lifestyle and a break from hectic, restless everyday life, technical features that measure and document every meter run, every calorie burned, every beat of the heart also make a significant contribution to the rapid success of running. Wearables, smartphones or similar apps now analyze data more precisely, providing distances, times, calorie consumption, altitude, heart rate and running forecasts in real time. This makes the effort visible and it spurs people on. With the help of gamification, mobile applications have integrated game elements into the customer experience, which nudge their users in specific directions. It helps those to internalise extrinsic motives and trigger intrinsic motivation. Gamification pairs the advantages of a utilitarian with a hedonic system. Implementing utilitarian elements spark intrinsic motivation, such as enjoyment, flow and involvement and hedonic systems provide a self-fulfilling value to the user, drive engagement, perceive enjoyment and encourage prolonged use. “The new age of running was born in the late ’00s, where social media like Facebook and especially Instagram started being very powerful as the way to share your personal life with an audience. A simple like has been a great motivation for many people, no matter whether they had just finished their first 10K, half-marathon or marathon,” says Hansen. A recent national daily newspaper recently reported that Strava brings together 41 million users from 195 countries, underlining how big and global the need for communication among athletes is:

There is a tremendous choice of races all over the world and running clubs have gained cult status, such as Berlin-based Kraft Runners, Amsterdam’s Patta Running Club to London’s Run Dem Crew, inviting anybody to take part from beginners to ambitious marathon runners. Oliver Brüggen of Adidas says: “Running is changing from an individual to a team sport,” with crew culture playing a key role by taking away the element of solitude, making running a social activity, and providing additional motivations. In this world, modern brands have arisen as social constructs, representing a form of belonging and form a link between culture and a spirituality left vacant by the loosening influence of traditional institutions. More and more runners are increasingly seeking to connect to a local group, there is no company or brand that does not promote or live the idea of the community via their social media channels. Former Lululemon chief executive Laurent Potdevin once said: “Our ambassadors, they are not the big athletes. They’re the local superheroes in their communities.” Satisfy regularly presents playlists with the right soundtrack at major marathons and Tracksmith publishes its own print journal. For the Danish label Saysky, Nicklas Fenger explains, “The community aspect is one of the pillars of what we do and believe in. We do loads of events each year, where we physically manifest our relationship with many of our customers, followers and fellow passionate athletes.” In many ways, running crews have grown as a part of street culture and share its rebellious attitude and DIY approach to creating and making things happen. Attracting everyone from street artists and creatives to teachers and students, what really sets them apart is that they are made up of unruly misfits previously uninitiated with the sport in any way. Scrap the image in your mind of the typical runner. Run crew members are tattooed, all ages, ethnicities, and builds, and wear Instagram worthy ‘fits every time they hit the streets. Crews are unique communities of seemingly incompatible individuals united over the thrill of running as a pack.

“From the very beginning we’ve been focused on nursing and caring about our community and the culture that goes with it.” Fenger points out: “That wasn’t part of some corporate strategy, but quite simple because we are the community and culture that we serve. Sport has always been about connecting with like-minded peers whether as training buddies on the track or competitors come race day.” In the case of running, no marketing storyboards and campaigns need to be constructed by clever people; running writes its own dramatic plot lines: “Running is a sport that is rich in stories–whether it is the one we tell ourselves to keep going in a workout or the ones we share with others about our best race. Social media are a natural vehicle for these stories,” says Taylor of Tracksmith. And that's probably why many runners have become such faithful and loyal, but also ambitious customers. They feel and the authenticity of these communities, an increasingly precious commodity that is becoming even more rare in today’s world, making it cool to be part of.