Hoka’s NYC Marathon Run-Up Is a Masterclass in Momentum
Hoka is turning the NYC Marathon training window into a community scoreboard. Here’s what brand marketers can steal from its run-up strategy.
When the New York City Marathon starts on Nov. 2, Hoka will already have spent weeks winning the race. The running brand’s latest campaign focuses on the run-up, turning training itself into a visible, community-wide event.
A scoreboard for the city’s training miles
Hoka has sponsored a Strava challenge that logs the progress of runners across New York, then feeds digital out-of-home billboards that act as scorecards for the city’s boroughs. The idea, says Allie Tsavdarides, Hoka’s VP of North America marketing, is to celebrate the grind rather than run another product ad. In her words, “The big day is always very exciting, but there’s a hell of a lot of work that goes into the training.”
The campaign, created with agency Jellyfish, combines paid social on TikTok and Meta, six creator partnerships and DOOH sites across the city. It leads into a block party Hoka is hosting this weekend, which will then become the subject of follow-up content.
Why the run-up is the real battleground
Running has shifted from a solitary pursuit to a social one. Last year’s New York City marathon saw more than 59,000 finishers, and run clubs have exploded as social, open-to-all communities. Sky Canaves, an eMarketer analyst and ultra-runner, argues the run scene has moved from competition-focused clubs to socially oriented ones.
- Training is the highest-frequency touchpoint: more days, more runs, more decisions.
- Community members are evangelists, not just buyers; they spread word of mouth off-platform.
- The run-up captures first-timers, marathon tourists and personal-record chasers, not just elite racers.
Michael Walsh Kirwan, VP and creative director at Jellyfish, frames the billboard mechanic as a feedback loop: “They’ll see literal change reflected back to them.” That public progress is the psychological hook — effort becomes identity.
The brand economics
Hoka’s global revenue hit $704 million in the first quarter, up 8%. Parent company Deckers expects Hoka to grow in the low double digits for the rest of the year, and its sales and administrative expenses rose 13% to $420 million, driven mainly by higher marketing spend.
That spend is not aimed at race-day awareness alone. Hoka sponsors endurance events close to its hardcore origins, such as the Western States Endurance Run and Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. But the NYC campaign extends the same logic to a broader community: show up before the starting gun, in the moments people are actually building their identity as runners.
What brand managers can steal
Dan Salkey, co-founder of Small World, sees a layering effect: creator trust and social proof, amplified by paid media, then topped by the mass visibility of DOOH. The result is an audience a brand can genuinely own, not rent through one-way ads.
The framework is straightforward: find the moment before your category’s peak, make customer progress visible, and let the community co-author the story. Hoka is not just selling shoes — it is reflecting runners’ effort back at them, in public, every day of training.
Source: Digiday
