Welcome to A Matter of Brand

The state of storytelling in the sport of running could use some work. Brands are homogenous, pros are underutilized and marketing teams consider a zombie scroll from your toilet to be “engagement”.

Meanwhile community run crews are booming, products have never been better, niche brands are rising, races are impossible to get into and more people identify as runners than ever before. There is so much value out there that is missed.

A prominent journalist in the sport recently told me that “all marketing is fluff” to which my response was that bad marketing is “fluff”. Running is a wildly human experience and marketing in our sport should never be perceived as fluff.

Welcome to A Matter of Brand.

This is a newsletter discussing brand storytelling strategies in running through original writing about content, community, retail, athletes, events and other brand building opportunities. Success comes from contributing to the culture vs capitalizing on it.

I will discuss ways to differentiate creatively, develop a brand narrative and get customers to not only buy something but buy into something.

The dialogue mixes creativity and business and is rooted in my experience as a creative director, photographer, film director working with hundreds of brands, retailers, events, athletes and communities in the running world.

I’d be extremely grateful if you could support these efforts by subscribing or sharing. Thank you!