How Shokz use Strava to grow awareness of open-ear technology

Shokz is one of the world’s leading pioneers in open-ear technology. Operating in over 60 markets with over 7 million customers, their devices are redefining how active people are listening while they move.

We sat down with the Shokz team to understand more about how they used Strava to achieve their marketing goals, and an insider’s look into how they approach marketing as an organization.

What are the key channels for you and how does Strava fit in?

Currently, Shokz leverages partnerships with top-tier events, mass running organizations, and elite athletes worldwide. These platforms and individuals help us connect with consumers more effectively, offering them innovative sports experiences. As the world’s largest digital community of its kind, Strava allows Shokz significant reach, and an authentic way to engage with their consumers.

A few years ago, Shokz approached Strava Challenges as standalone campaigns, where users could complete challenges to win prizes. While effective, these campaigns were relatively straightforward. Over time, we’ve evolved our approach to integrate brand messaging and product promotion with richer, more engaging content and experiences. For example, in collaboration with triathlon legend Jan Frodeno and our amphibious product OpenSwim Pro, we launched the “A Day with Jan Frodeno Challenge”. This challenge offered participants the chance to not only complete an online activity but also win a free trip to Cologne, Germany, to meet Jan in person. 

Similarly, for the UTMB Finals, we worked with 11 global Shokz athletes to present the “Mountain Rock’n’Roll Challenge”, where participants could win a race bib for next year’s UTMB and vote for their favourite athlete playlist for the 2024 Playlist Award.

As these initiatives gained traction, our club on Strava saw significant growth, with global users joining the community. Strava has evolved from being a platform where we run activations to a key element of our broader marketing strategy.

Beyond challenges, we now focus on community management through Strava, sharing athlete insights, discussing running topics, and curating playlists to enhance the running experience. This fosters deeper connections and engagement within our user base.

From basic online challenges to embedding Strava into larger marketing projects, we’ve aligned with the increasing demand for high-quality event experiences. We now design comprehensive engagement journeys, including well-curated themes and attractive prize structures for each campaign. Through Strava, we not only encourage participation in sports but also strengthen user loyalty and trust by enriching their interactions with the Shokz brand in a meaningful way.

How effective was your Strava challenge?

We typically use the OGSM framework (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, Measures) to set clear, measurable objectives for each challenge.

Objective (O): Every challenge aims to offer participants a high-quality experience while deepening their understanding and connection with the Shokz brand.

Goals (G): A key measurable indicator is participation numbers. For example, in the Mountain Rock’n’Roll Challenge, the projected participation based on rate card estimates was 188k for the week. Shokz set a higher target of 250k, and the final result reached 296k participants—far exceeding expectations, demonstrating strong engagement and appeal.

To evaluate how well the challenge communicated brand messages, we also conducted a post-event survey with a random sample of participants. The survey assessed awareness of: Shokz’s partnership with UTMB, Shokz’s collaborations with elite athletes, and The launch of Shokz’s new product.

The results showed a significant increase in awareness across all three areas, confirming that the challenge effectively conveyed our key messages. The challenge therefore not only surpassed participation goals but also achieved substantial success in enhancing brand recognition, aligning perfectly with our intended objectives.

What did you learn from your challenge?

At Shokz, we've refined our Strava challenge design using the 5A model to optimize the user journey, ensuring seamless engagement from start to finish:

1. Aware:
   To stand out among numerous challenges, we focus on strong visual design and compelling titles that grab users' attention. Many of our team members are also active Strava users, which gives us unique insights into the preferences and needs of our target audience, enhancing our brand visibility.

2. Appeal:
   Once users notice the challenge, we deepen their interest through relatable, story-driven content. Meaningful and collectible digital badges, coupled with engaging yet achievable goals, motivate users to take the next step.

3. Ask:
   As users seek details about the challenge, we simplify the process by ensuring clear, accessible information. Our close collaboration with the Shokz customer service team enables prompt responses to questions, helping users make confident decisions to join.

4. Act:
   When users participate, the focus shifts to maintaining their enthusiasm. Carefully curated prize matrices, featuring desirable and buzz-worthy rewards, not only incentivize challenge completion but also foster anticipation for future interactions with the brand.

5. Advocate:
   After completing the challenge, we encourage users to become brand advocates by creating memorable experiences. Exciting rewards and unique interactions inspire participants to share their achievements, spreading awareness and drawing more users into the Shokz community.
   

By following this structured approach, we've successfully transformed simple challenges into emotionally resonant experiences that bridge the gap between users and the Shokz brand. Each interaction fosters deeper connections, improving brand recognition and loyalty on Strava. This learning has allowed us to evolve challenges from task-based activities into storytelling-driven engagements, enhancing user satisfaction and long-term advocacy.

How do you balance brand vs performance marketing initiatives?

Finding the right balance between brand marketing and performance marketing is a critical challenge that every brand must carefully consider. This balance often depends on the brand’s stage of development, industry characteristics, and product positioning. 

Many companies adopt a product-driven approach, where the product team develops a product, and the marketing team promotes it based on its features. However, at Shokz, our goal is not just to promote products; we also aim to continuously optimize them through user feedback. As a result, we have adopted a dual-driven strategy, combining product development and marketing, to better meet the real needs of our users.

Our shared goal is to build a dream brand. This is not just about technological innovation and market performance; it’s also about conveying our brand spirit, creating emotional resonance with every employee and consumer. Therefore, we place great importance on brand marketing. For example, when choosing athletes to collaborate with, we focus on whether our products can truly support these athletes and, through that, build trust between the athletes, the brand, and the products. This trust ultimately influences more runners. We partner with elite athletes like Eliud Kipchoge, Eilish McColgan, and Tom Evans, allowing them to share their running experiences and tips. We also host offline events, such as "A Day with Jan Frodeno", offering everyday runners the opportunity to interact face-to-face with top athletes.

Such high-quality content deserves to be seen by more people, and performance marketing becomes a lever and amplifier in this process. Through channels like Meta and Google, we can efficiently distribute this valuable content to potential users using performance marketing techniques.

We believe that brand marketing and performance marketing are two different ways to communicate with users. They are not opposing forces, but rather complementary. By combining both, we can provide users with an exceptional product experience while conveying rich brand value.

Which marketing trends are emerging and how are you changing your approach?

In the past, the market focused heavily on advertising and SEO, but recent trends indicate that brands are increasingly prioritizing authentic community engagement. Beyond digital marketing, the interaction between brands and consumers has evolved from simple advertising touchpoints to deeper brand experiences and community building. In the post-pandemic era, the sports market has seen significant growth, with many brands shifting focus from purely performance marketing to more investments in brand development and cultivating customer loyalty. In this process, taking the time to research user personas and customer journeys has become crucial.

At Shokz, we categorize the running community into a pyramid structure with different levels. At the top are trail runners and triathletes, a core group that invests significant energy into sports. The middle tier consists of marathon enthusiasts, who make running a key part of their lives and have clear training and race goals. The bottom tier is made up of general runners who prioritize a healthy lifestyle and enjoy the social aspect of running. In market observations, we've found that an increasing number of runners are wearing headphones during exercise, and Shokz's bone conduction and open-ear technology, known for their comfort and safety, are becoming popular choices.

Based on these insights, we have created a marketing matrix through partnerships with top events like UTMB, the Chicago Marathon, the Paris Marathon, the Sydney Marathon, and mass running organizations like Parkrun. This allows us to build Shokz's presence across a wide range of running communities, from the most extreme runners to marathoners and casual parkrunners.

When planning our marketing activities, we focus on designing campaigns that align with the characteristics of each running group. By understanding community culture and preferences, we establish effective brand interactions, allowing different segments of runners to naturally connect with Shokz’s brand philosophy and product values during their participation.

How does Shokz structure its marketing team? 

Our marketing team is structured regionally, with divisions for Greater China, North America, and International (covering all other regions). Each region is further organized by function, including Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), Public Relations (PR), Influencer Marketing (KOL), Business Development (BD), and Social Media, among others. This structure ensures high collaboration and flexibility between regions and functions, driving the successful execution of our overall marketing strategy through cross-team cooperation.

For example, in the Strava Mountain Rock'n'Roll Challenge, which is part of our integrated marketing campaign for the UTMB Mont Blanc final and new product launch, team members came from Greater China, North America, and International teams. The project was led by the IMC team, with close coordination across all functions: the KOL team managed global athlete resources, the PR team handled media relations, the BD team communicated with partners, and the Social Media team led the online promotion of the event. It is this efficient, cross-regional, and cross-functional collaboration that allows us to deliver a unified campaign outcome.