Skip to content
Social Rocket

HOKA turns Strava running data into digital out-of-home advertising

HOKA combines Strava data, digital out-of-home advertising, paid social and creator marketing: in the "Run Your City" competition, real running data becomes part of the campaign.

From Social Rocket editorial team

This text was created with AI assistance and reviewed editorially before publication. All sources are linked below.

Digital billboard on a street as a symbol of data-driven out-of-home advertising
Photo: glenn pajarito / Unsplash

HOKA is turning its community's running data directly into advertising material. For the new "Run Your City" campaign, the five New York boroughs will compete against each other on Strava in September 2026, and their miles run, pace values and other statistics will feed into digital out-of-home advertising across the city.

The campaign was developed by Jellyfish and builds on HOKA's existing partnership with Strava. The interim standings are to be updated weekly on digital screens in Times Square, Tribeca, SoHo and Williamsburg. In parallel, paid social, creator content and a media partnership with Highsnobiety extend the challenge online.

User data becomes the creative itself

The interesting part is less the running challenge than the connection between participation and advertising material. The data does not come from a classic market research or CRM database, but from the community's activity on Strava. That very activity then changes the visible campaign.

This creates a cycle: people run, their activity shifts the borough comparison, and the updated figures appear on screens and social media, which in turn can trigger additional participation.

For social media teams, this is a good example of how community activity can become a content raw material. Equally important is linking the campaign idea with clear measures – our guide on social media goals and KPIs 2026 fits here.

Creators and paid social amplify the competition

Six creators are set to represent the five boroughs, document their own participation and encourage other runners to join the challenge. The content will also be distributed via TikTok and Meta.

HOKA is thus using creators not merely as a reach channel, but as participants within the same mechanic. This differs from classic sponsorships, where creators simply hold a product up to the camera. How the market for such collaborations is changing is shown in our article on creator marketing and pricing 2026.

The challenge ends on 3 October with a HOKA event at the McCarren Parkhouse in Brooklyn. Material from it is then to be played out in a further social campaign.

What marketers can take away from the HOKA case

The mechanic is especially interesting because HOKA does not have to invent any new user behaviour. The target audience is running anyway, and many participants already record their activity in Strava. The campaign turns this existing behaviour into a public competitive element.

For brands, this is usually more robust than an artificial hashtag mechanism: the closer an activation sits to a behaviour the target audience already shows, the lower the additional barrier to participation.

At the same time, measurement remains decisive. Screen reach, social views and creator engagement alone do not yet show whether the campaign actually generates additional runs, brand preference or sales. This separation between activity and impact is also relevant for social-first campaigns such as Hershey x KATSEYE. Those who scale paid social alongside should look at our overview of TikTok Ads and AI automation 2026 for the current platform context.

Sources