Brooks Becomes First Global Monthly Challenge Partner

Brooks has become our first brand partner to collaborate on a recurring global monthly challenge.

Sponsored Challenges: A quick refresher

Sponsored Challenges are a fairly unique promotional format for brands.

Rather than an interruptive, scroll-and-you’ll-miss-it affair, they genuinely bring active people and brands together in a way that provides value for the user and great promotion for the brand.

Our Brand Partnerships team has worked with hundreds of brands from all over the world – of every size and vertical – to help them activate on Strava and reach an audience that makes movement an important part of their lives.

But there’s one thing we haven’t done when it comes to challenges, that is, until June 2023. ‍

The first ever Strava Monthly Challenge brand partner

As well as our ad-hoc challenges with brand partners, we run monthly recurring global challenges centred around key activities: a 5k, 10k or half marathon run, a Gran Fondo or distance ride, and many others. These challenges have not previously been open to collaboration with brand partners. 

But for the very first time, we worked with Brooks to partner on our 5k monthly challenge, worldwide.

As one of the world’s most loved running brands, Brooks is a natural fit for the Strava community. And with the emphasis the brand places on running happy, Sponsored Challenges are a perfect match – inspiring active people to improve their lives by running, and to earn rewards at the same time. Strava’s partnership with Brooks on the Global Monthly 5K challenge emphasises this natural fit between the two brands even further: it provides unprecedented reach in a way that appears natural to the Strava community.   ‍

How did it go?

Perhaps this positive brand perception is why when Strava partnered with Brooks, over a million people worldwide participated in the challenge. This shows the authenticity of the relationship with Brooks, the strength of the brand and the unobtrusiveness of the activation.

The challenge garnered 37.5 million impressions, and resulted in  1.1 million participants, with 77 percent of runners being first time Brooks Challenge participants – an important metric for brand activations like this. As with all challenges, users who complete the challenge receive a completion email with a call to action. We saw a high CTR of 29% on this – showing a clear desire from participants to learn more about the brand.‍

What’s next?

We’re exploring how selected brand partners can work with us on several other monthly challenges throughout 2023 and beyond. Of course, as with any of our sponsored challenges, brands must have a genuine and authentic connection to sports or an active lifestyle. For our global monthly challenges, these connections must be even stronger.