HOKA wanted to bring its professional athletes closer to dedicated amateur runners who are equally passionate about achievement.
To cut through the sea of saturated online running content, our first campaign focused on a less-explored angle of running culture: celebrating the pacers and guides who lead athletes to success.
Keeping Pace is a social series of films told through the eyes of HOKA athletes. The films delve into the stories, motivations, and sacrifices that define the rarely seen world of pacing and guiding.
Pacing and guiding are critical roles that often go unnoticed, far from the spotlight. Pacers and guides are competitive athletes in their own right, driven not by personal glory, but by purpose.
The campaign celebrates that mindset. It explores the precision, trust, and quiet leadership that help others achieve the extraordinary. It is a portrait of team spirit in a sport often seen as solitary.
Our series features three distinct films.
Noah: Rising distance runner Noah discovers the power of pacing while leading an Olympic group through the Amsterdam Marathon. The film showcases the trust and quiet responsibility that come with helping others achieve their goals.
Duncan & Maxime: This film is a deep look at the unique partnership between visually impaired runner Maxime and his guide, HOKA athlete Duncan. We witness the precision, trust, and unspoken communication essential for them to run as one.
Manon & Patrick: Manon and her father, Patrick, train side by side for the 100-mile trail race Hardrock 100, where he will pace her for the first time. Running becomes a space for shared memories, mutual respect, and a deeper family bond.
Elite runners see the world differently from regular people. What’s totally normal to them is, let’s face it, crazy, weird or totally unreasonable to us.
Runner Logic, our second series with HOKA, celebrates this mindset. One that fellow runners will love and see themselves in, and regular people will likely find strange - but equally fascinating.
Each film follows a theme and unearths the opinions, anecdotes, hot takes and rituals of some of the world's best runners. The films were complemented by a series of carousels exploring their own themes - from Pasta to how "stupid" running actually is when you really think about it.
More than a one-off campaign, Runner Logic is a content franchise that will continue to grow. To support this, we developed a creative playbook and design toolkit for Hoka to continue telling these weird and wonderful stories.