30// Dacia UTMB & Nike’s absence

A Trailmix of news, quotes and ramblings about trail media

Hey pals,

Two news commentaries today, both along the same theme - what does being associated with trail running mean? And what do you have to do prove you are a brand for trail runners?

First up is Dacia’s title sponsorship of UTMB. Second up is Nike’s tiptoeing around trail running.

Hope you have a great week :)

Matt

Dacia, meet UTMB. Dacia, UTMB

It was only a matter of time. UTMB is now the ‘Dacia UTMB Mont Blanc’ after Dacia became the title sponsor of the race and premier sponsor of the World Series for the next three years.

Branding the event is a bold move since UTMB will now have to share the headlines with Dacia, which comes with it the woolly metrics of alignment in beliefs, visions and ‘purpose’. Hence why the UTMB’s press release sound like a ‘how we met’ love story of shared values and passion for the mountains. Whatever Dacia does reflects on UTMB, and vice versa.

The questions you have to ask are - what does Dacia give UTMB beyond cars for carpooling? The credibility of having an established European automotive company as your title sponsor.

And what does UTMB give Dacia? That’s less obvious. Dacia have obviously seen a shared audience in the middle class, wealthy, educated ultrarunning audience of UTMB, so maybe they could infer some ROI from their previous sponsorship.

Dacia get to demonstrate their eco-credentials by sponsoring an outdoors event (the ridiculousness of that statement is not lost on me, but that likely was in the marketing pitch deck to the C-suite).

Dacia also joins the sport relatively early as it begins to increase its broadcast and streaming coverage, generating a cost-efficient method for reaching their European and global audiences at scale over the next three years.

Whatever they saw from it their investment signals a point where automotives are now one of the biggest investors/sponsors of trail running behind shoe companies. Without knowing their investment, we can’t quantify the size of the deal but alongside Volkswagon’s sponsorship of WMTRC 2023, Zugspitz Ultratrail and the Transalpine Run, its an interesting trend to follow.

Automotive companies are regular sponsors of sports events spending $1.4 billion annually on sports sponsorships, across 657 deals at an average of $2.2 million per deal, according to GlobalData. To that extent it was almost guaranteed trail running would start to attract automotive brands as it began to grow its exposure.

Being a sport closely tied to the environment also makes ultrarunning an obvious way for automotive brands to boost their public image in regards to their sustainability. But therein lies an issue - when cars are one of the biggest contributors to environmental damage, should trail running as a sport support brands polluting the same environments that we run in?

Currently both VW and Dacia are using the sponsorships as a vehicle to sell their electric/hybrid cars, promoting the most sustainable behaviour any car buyer could make. But obviously, the best method is to not use cars as much, which would be a pretty counter-productive statement for an automotive company to make.

Expect ads with Walmsley striding into a Dacia Sandero, Blanchard being overtaken by a Dacia Duster, and terrible puns around ‘its not about the destination, it’s about the journey’.

But don’t expect many people to start calling UTMB the ‘Dacia UTMB Mont Blanc’.

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Nike’s slow dance with trail running

What makes a brand a ‘trail running brand’?

David Callaghan, founder of Ultrasignup, posted that question on LinkedIn recently citing Nike’s activation at WSER and their sizeable athlete base as a marker of Nike’s growing commitment to the sport.

The comment section somewhat skirted the premise of the question and went straight to their opinions of Nike shoes. But there’s more Nike needs to do to be a trail running brand than just make nice shoes. Advertising and Distribution has something to do with it.

Adidas came into the trail running market at a similar time to Nike, both seeing the same opportunity but went about it differently.

Nike made some shoes, invested a little into the advertising, but ultimately limited their distribution to online and select wholesale retailers. It felt like a very low touch investment into the area, as if they were testing the waters but not committing that much. Routinely the soles of all iterations of their trail shoes were pulled up for their limited grip, becoming a metaphor for their small investment into trail running.

Adidas went a lot deeper into the community quicker. In the UK they were quick to sponsor short distance races (e.g Maverick)and became a feature at many outdoors running events. They distributed their shoes through events, outdoors retailers as well as running stores. They acted like other brands in trail running - commit to the community, involve yourself in events and put your shoes in places that trail runners are looking.

Distribution is the unsexy side of marketing which has a bigger role in a brands success than most would think. In their latest Q4 report, Nike admitted they weren’t equipped to deal with the logistics behind moving more of their sales online through DTC (direct to consumer) after it had routinely taken chunks out of their profit margins quarter after quarter. I would also argue that reliance on DTC hampered their growth in the trail running category by reducing the brand perception that they’re a trail running brand.

Now they’re reverting back to good’ole wholesale, but this is an opportunity to move their trail brands in specialty running and outdoor stores to be where trail runners are.

Distribution isn’t the sole way Nike could play a larger part in trail running. In that same Q4 report, John Donahoe, the CEO of Nike, stated in the analyst commentary that the running category had become ‘a competitive battlefield lately’, referring to Hoka’s very quick ascent.

Part of Hoka’s success has been a brand that has had been a tight control of distribution, growing up as a DTC brand with select specialty retailers. But also they’ve not been afraid to heavily invest into trail running advertising and event sponsorship, UTMB being its flagship sponsorship.

Nike has always been known for its memorable advertising campaigns, but that same energy has seemingly not been spent on the trail running category. Nike’s distribution of shoes at WSER is a sign maybe they’re beginning to invest more in the category, and i have no doubt once they actually begin, they’ll be right at the top of our conversation.

You have to ask though - why have Nike been tiptoeing around trail running?