What Now? Empathy Is Our New Currency.

Cultural status will involve signaling an elevated level of empathy. The brands that succeed should double-down on community strategy with a new empathy funnel.

I wasn’t going to write anything this week. There are more important issues at hand to be debating trivial things like running brands. Spending time comparing running to skateboarding or being upset about Matt Choi in NYC seems like an absolute luxury right now. We will get back to it eventually but now is not the time.

Despite temptation I know it’s not productive to crawl into a hole, lash out in frustration or google the best countries to work remotely. In my experience, however, writing out my thoughts in search of an evolved purpose tends to be a more worthwhile endeavor to help me to cope. So here I am thinking of how the running world can better this new situation that is riddled with insecurity for so many. How can a running brand actively help while contributing to business goals?

How can we do more?

First, we are runners damn it and running is worthwhile because it’s hard. Running reinforces ideas and behaviors that make us better people - patience, perseverance, goal setting, confidence, and supporting one another.

When it seems like everything is upside down and backwards, when it feels like a moral famine has enveloped the world around us, we need to lean further into the things that re-orient us in the proper direction. More than ever we need practices that balance and align us with the best parts of humanity - that remind us of the world we are working to create. We need tools that, despite rough seas or nausea, keep our eyes on the horizon.

We are so lucky to have running but we are at an inflection point.

In the future we need to double-down on community and be loud about it. Actively lifting each other up needs to be a requirement not a “nice to have”. Conversely we will be obligated to keep poisonous behaviors from spoiling the spirit of running (the recent Choi example).

From here on out the way brands go about doing business must adapt to this increased emphasis.

Our community will demand even more authenticity, transparency and contribution from various players - brands, events, influencers, retailers, athletes, etc. We won’t want to hear about your “product story”. Our purchasing decisions will increasingly consider empathetic behaviors as much or MORE THAN the products themselves. We will expect that brands not only provide tools for running but that they also contribute to the community and serve as stewards of the sport. Without the latter you won’t get in the game.

The best brands will lead with empathy without making assumptions. They’ll roll up their sleeves and invest in understanding the community - everything from their worries to their dreams. Then they’ll stand alongside them in cultivating a culture that serves as our horizon line during these turbulent times. Only then can they expect the community to consider their products and open their wallets.

With our country’s prevalent leadership strategy bent on leveraging fear and hatred for political gain, the consumer will increasingly use products (as we often do) to signal to the world where we fall on the spectrum. In this case the elevated status will be empathy vs. the less desirable status of indifference, let alone hatred.

In our new situation consumers will look to signal an elevated level of empathy and will align themselves with brands that behave and approach the community in the same way.

Running commerce will increasingly deal in this currency of empathy and brands should develop an empathy funnel to organize and measure their efforts. We see some brands with scattered activities in this area but we must elevate service to our community as table stakes going forward. This new funnel should encompass typical marketing activities like events, collabs, products, content, etc. BUT with the goal of understanding and supporting communities as opposed to selling products.

This is a brand building endeavor so brands will first need to develop short and long-term goals and a community segmentation strategy along these lines. They will of course develop KPIs to track progress and ultimately link the efforts to growth and business goals.

To be successful they should define the following:

1) Their story. The unique reason their brand shows up. Be self-aware here.

2) The ways they can contribute to lifting up communities (big creative ideas)

3) The media amplification strategy to story tell around these efforts.

Initiatives and partnerships should be developed within the frame of a brand’s unique voice with the goal to counter the impending threats faced by specific communities. Then brands should develop media amplification tactics and a creative content mix to communicate the work being done.

There is no shortage of obvious organizations within running that many brands already donate to as “partners” (RIDC, POW, RUFA, others). Going forward we need to do more than just be a logo on these websites. Taking it a step further, the issues we take action on don’t even need to be related to running. They may be around economic, environmental, healthcare, reproductive rights, immigration, and others.

The biggest opportunities for impact might actually be with causes outside of running.

Supporting organizations outside of running bridges the values of our sport to wider society and demonstrates unselfish intention. There are plenty of opportunities to partner with organizations that assist immigrants, the LGBTQ community or reproductive freedom. Don’t wait for the first crisis. Partner with them now to show you are in it from the start.

For example, work with Touching Land on an initiative that lifts up farmworkers, many of whom are immigrants. Go further and amplify it with a film or an art exhibition. Let the farmworkers create it. Then develop a product that is authentic to and for the benefit of the farmworkers so we can all signal our empathy to this community. Fashion designer Heron Preston received accolades for his work with the New York Department of Sanitation to reimagine and repurpose their uniforms - a creative application of design principles to recognize an under appreciated part of the NYC community.

Work with St. Jude on healthcare issues or Habitat for Humanity to build homes. Partner with the Red Cross ahead of the next hurricane season. Create volunteer jackets or donate shoes to the volunteers and victims. Story tell around it. They’re simple but these MoMA x Nike socks are a really cool way to show your support for the arts. It’d be awesome to sport a pair that carries the logo of a civil liberties organization. What if Red Cross jackets created by The North Face were sold to the public? I’d wear one. These should NOT be “nice to have” side projects but must be KEY MARKETING CAMPAIGNS.

Our climate and public lands are of course under attack as well. When 1000 homes in my town burned down in the Marshall Fire a few years ago 1/5 of children at our elementary school lost their homes. Several brands helped out with donations but Crocs stepped in to hold an event at the school with Denver Broncos linebacker Baron Browning. They partnered with Impact for Education, the local foundation for our school system. They brought in an event trailer and gave Crocs and jibbets to every kid and teacher in the school and then created content around it. This is thinking in the right direction.

Many segments of our community will be impacted going forward and the brands that genuinely contribute in service to the real problems they face will establish themselves as active and empathetic participants in society. These are the brands that will succeed.

Please take care of one another. ✌️