🟠Au Revoir, Chamonix
Everything that happened outside the race…
Hey!
For me UTMB was a short two day excursion. Pop to the Expo, have countless Moody’s meetings, grab a Bighorn burger, soak up all the industry tea, get fully shook up from several branded shakeout runs, then back to Geneva. Short but oh so sweet.
Sure there were races going on, but the on-the-ground extras are just as juicy. For you Industry snobs, here’s some stories, headlines and observations from the expo.
Next year I really need to go for the week.
Matt
UTMB would prefer not to be ‘ambushed’
UTMB have continued cracking down on distribution of branded content at their events. This year in the press kit, the keen eyed will have spotted a paragraph on a limitation on guerilla marketing across the week.
In UTMB’s words:
“The development of the Hoka UTMB Mont Blanc, particularly in Chamonix, and the influx of spectators have created numerous opportunities for brands seeking to reach trail enthusiasts. This has sometimes led to excesses, such as unauthorised advertising and distribution of products that impact the local community”
To combat this ambush marketing UTMB have trained staff to be able to spot it, formed a dedicated hit squad and asked brands to sign a charter that respects ‘local marketing rules, in accordance with the Chamonix advertising regulations’.
Ambush marketing has always been a part of big event marketing from brands that don’t buy into the headline sponsorship deals (Think Nike at the Olympics or Euros this summer where Adidas are part of the core sponsorship team). Policies like this designed to maintain the equity and benefits for the sponsors of a large event so that they maintain an almost clear opportunity to reach their desired target audience unopposed. In reality, this never works, brands will find creative ways around it and the actions to police these policies can often be laughable (for example, the On team were telling me that last year they were told they couldn’t shake On branded cowbells on the UTMB course).
For UTMB, this is also a way to protect the UTMB brand from unauthorised marketing that may project the brand in a way UTMB does not want it to be. A needed policy to prevent UTMB’s image coming into disrepute, but i do wonder if it’s too soon for something like this. For instance, according to the Dynafit team I spoke to they were told they can’t post UTMB Mont Blanc finish line videos on their social unless they pay a sizeable fee. Typically these policies co-inside with a need to protect the value of their media rights, so that rights holders maintain the value of their investment. But lets recall, no one has bought UTMB’s media rights, you can watch it all on YouTube for free. The unintended consequence is UTMB kneecaps it’s organic reach on social by limiting its distribution to owned channels, which not everyone who buys On or Nnormal products will follow. (However UTMB are also boosting the reach of their highlights across the EU on Meta, clearly a way to counter any reach lost)
What counts as ‘ambush marketing’ on this occasion is not clear from the brochure, and UTMB didn’t respond to my requests for clarification.
However even Hoka almost fell foul of this on Monday when four members of Hoka China wandered through town carrying a red dragon, but they weren’t wearing Hoka kit so we’re unidentifiable to UTMB who consequently complained. Moments later the four members returned in grey Hoka T-shirts, waving their red dragon chanting ‘Hoka, Hoka, Hoka’.
Observations at the expo
Brook’s investment at UTMB was evident from Geneva airport, but with some more unconventional approaches. They were obviously sold the classic ‘own the journey’ model by their media agency with ads on the back of airport transfer buses, goody bag hand outs on some of them, and the odd Geneva airport digital billboards. They then decided, why stop at land and not think about the air? So they hired a paraglider to glide over Chamonix in a Brook’s parachute at random morning intervals. Once more, if you bought Brooks shoes at Snell’s you would get a scratch card where you could win a free paragliding trip.
Hoka Tecton X3s were the clobber of choice this year with the sound of sticky Vibram soles traipsing round town. Ingeniously, you could try on a pair for 24 hours from their stand, adding to the perception that despite the hefty 250 euro price tag, people were thirsty for the brand.
At 9am on a crisp Tuesday morning, Hoka hosted a group run that was practically another race entirely. Donning red Hoka branded t-shirts (that was eerily the same shade of red as Terrex) this sea of runners swarmed the expo for a swift hour jaunt around Chamonix. That red was then on parade throughout Tuesday, which must have been confusing for Adidas.
To the south of the Expo, Norda released their 005 super shoe at Sangland to a small crowd of Norda-clad obessives. I had a long chat with Louis, Norda’s head of design, whose poetic description of the process of making these shoes was an adventure in itself. These were honestly some of the lightest shoes I’ve picked up, ever, let alone on a trail running shoe. These shoes are going to fly off the virtual shelf in 2025.
About a mile away from the Expo down what feels like a suburban side street, Satisfy based themselves in a chalet with a range of branded merch, car decals, T-shirts, and printed copy of Possesed, their media publication. Whilst the shop was a literal garage (adding that Satisfy grit to Chamonix), the outside was the most chill place to be, plus, I’m a sucker for stickers, the OG merch item.
Lululemon and Arcteryx were notable absentees. Evidently they’re playing a different game to every other brand with a trail running shoe.
Notable reads
Doug Mayer described UTMB’s year so far as being ‘delicate’ in a comprehensive and balanced take on UTMB efforts to address the community’s criticisms.
FootwearNews had the exclusive on Norda’s 005 shoes where Nick brands them the ‘Lamborghini’ for the trails. A couple of interesting details were Norda’s sales - consistently grown 100-200% per year since launching - and new equipment range, with a hat and socks coming in the near future. My bet is on dyneema socks.
Killian’s Alpine connections project got a lot of raised eyebrows across the town this week - Is the timing of the event just a coincidence or is it ‘ambush’ marketing - a way to capture attention at the peak of the sports annual bacchanal? Regardless, this article was a great summarisation of the proposed objectives and spirit of the adventure. Allez Killian!
Rossignol, the European ski brand, is broadening its portfolio of products out to trail running after it launched it’s first trail running shoes dedicated to medium distance races. Welcome to the summer season!
The really funny and insidious thing is that Vincent clearly finished with Hoka - and he doesn't have a sponsor and doesn't want one. This shows the real professionalism of Hoka's team. Why does Hoka pay so much money to its athletes when the best people are in-house engineers and work full-time for their money? Perhaps the company's own employees are smarter than the professional athletes?