One of the most interesting battles in sport right now is between the brands dressing it.
If you haven’t yet noticed, the message from the major sports kit brands is to declare their tech-forward credentials.
They are no longer selling apparel, what you are buying is clever foam, smart fabrics, aerodynamic gain, and engineering detail measured in millimetres and milliseconds. In other words, elite performance is becoming a product story.
It is undeniably impressive stuff, and marketing teams across the sector are lining up record attempts at record pace, each hoping their athlete ends up in the history books and, by extension, their technology does too. These activations have become a well-worn PR device and, to be fair, for good reason: when they land, they are enormously effective.
This summer it is Josh Kerr and the mile, and his sponsor is Brooks Running.
We’ve seen Nike and adidas play this game extremely well, with Salomon, Mizuno, and On increasingly joining the fray, so it was only a matter of time before Brooks made its move.
Traditionally, though, Brooks has occupied the dependable lane: solid, respected, sensible. The Volvo of running shoes, if you will. And yet here it is, deep in the weeds of power mapping, foam density, power to weight ratios, and bespoke spike construction, all within the unforgiving 20mm regulations. It’s less sports footwear and more applied engineering and brilliantly unpicked by Matt Lawton in The Sunday Times.
The whole story compresses into a single, unforgettable outcome, with plenty for the marketing team to telegraph. Afterall, consumers may not understand the science completely, but they understand one thing perfectly well: fast wins.
The concern in the rush for records is that when they don’t work out – and pardon the mixed sports metaphor – all that technical wizardry risks looking like an own goal. But bigger than that is a massive contradiction and a market opportunity for someone. …why on earth are athletes’ bibs is still attached with safety pins?
For all sport’s obsession with the future, it remains gloriously tethered to the past.
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