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Brands20 June 2026 · 7 min

How brands should approach run clubs

Community partnerships fail when they arrive as media buys. A field guide to showing up usefully.

WOTT Editorial

Runners gathering by the waterfront at dusk

Placeholder article. Run clubs are among the healthiest communities in any city, and among the easiest to damage with the wrong kind of sponsorship.

The brands that succeed solve a problem the crew already has: bag storage, hydration at the turnaround, physio after the long run, photos worth posting.

Three rules

  • Fund the thing that already works; don't rebrand it.
  • Pay the people who lead it.
  • Show up more than once.
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