No, Running Clubs are not the new Influencers
Contemporary influencer marketing is transactional, while running clubs is about building trust & community
Photo by Miguel A Amutio on Unsplash
This Article is based on the White Paper Strategic Foresight Analysis: The Resurgence of In-Person Communities as a Response to Digital Saturation.
The marketing world’s recent focus on running clubs as a new influencer marketing tool misunderstands what these groups are about. Treating running clubs like typical influencer targets misses the point and harms the genuine connection that makes these communities special. Companies using old influencer tactics risk ruining what makes running clubs valuable.
The Structural Limitations of Traditional Influencer Models
Contemporary influencer marketing operates on transactional principles: monetary exchange for reach, content creation, and measurable engagement outcomes. This model prioritizes visibility metrics, viral potential, and conversion optimization through established funnel methodologies. Running clubs, however, function according to fundamentally different organizational and social principles.
While influencer partnerships center on personal brand development and aspirational content distribution, running clubs construct communities around shared experiential frameworks. This distinction represents more than semantic differentiation, it reflects divergent foundational structures. Communities form through belonging mechanisms rather than follower dynamics, achieving sustainability through consistency and trust rather than algorithmic manipulation and trending content strategies.
Strategic Misalignment in Community Engagement
When organisations apply traditional sponsorship models to running club partnerships, they consistently demonstrate three critical strategic failures:
Prioritizing visibility over authenticity: Organisations that emphasise logo placement and brand visibility treat community spaces as advertising inventory rather than social ecosystems. This approach signals extractive rather than contributory intent, generating community resistance and undermining long-term relationship potential.
Extracting value rather than creating it: Traditional influencer partnerships operate on extraction models where organisations purchase content and reach. Community engagement requires investment that genuinely serves community objectives rather than merely organizational marketing goals.
Measuring inappropriate performance indicators: Engagement rates, follower growth, and reach metrics provide limited insight into community strength or sustainability. Meaningful measurement focuses on using multiple data points create a holistic view.
The Trust Imperative in Contemporary Marketing
Research from the Edelman Trust Barometer demonstrates declining consumer trust in brand communications, particularly when marketing approaches appear inauthentic or exploitative. Organizations seeking new engagement channels often apply legacy frameworks to emerging spaces, generating suboptimal results and further eroding consumer confidence.
The challenge transcends channel selection, it reflects methodological misalignment. Running clubs represent consumer responses to digital fatigue and urban isolation, providing genuine connection opportunities in increasingly atomized social environments. When organizations treat these communities as media inventory, they compromise the authentic connection that constitutes their primary value proposition.
Evidence-Based Community Engagement Principles
Analysis of successful brand-community partnerships reveals three consistent characteristics:
Genuine utility to community objectives: Rather than questioning how communities can serve organisational goals, successful partnerships prioritise how organisational resources can advance community missions and member welfare.
Adoption of guest positioning: Effective brand engagement acknowledges community cultural precedence, positioning organizations as supportive participants rather than dominant sponsors or primary stakeholders.
Strategic Partnerships: Engaging in project-based community partnerships generates concentrated brand presence that achieves heightened visibility through merit-based association rather than ambient exposure. This approach delivers focused market penetration with enhanced credibility, as community engagement appears purposeful and contextually relevant rather than diffuse background advertising that consumers increasingly filter out.
Strategic Opportunity Assessment
The running club phenomenon represents significant strategic opportunity beyond traditional marketing applications. These communities address documented needs including urban loneliness, social isolation, and community connection deficits that affect consumer well-being and purchasing behavior.
However, this opportunity requires organizational commitment to authentic community support rather than superficial engagement tactics. Successful community participation demands understanding of cultural dynamics, respect for established values, and genuine commitment to community welfare.
Organizational Decision Framework
Running clubs do not represent influencer marketing evolution—they constitute opportunities for authentic, value-based relationship development grounded in shared principles and mutual benefit structures.
Success requires organizational readiness for community investment rather than extraction, authentic alignment with community values rather than opportunistic engagement, and resistance to traditional marketing tactics that compromise community integrity.
The strategic question extends beyond whether running clubs can serve organizational marketing objectives to whether organizations are prepared to meaningfully contribute to community success and sustainability.
Implications for Strategic Practice
Contemporary consumer expectations increasingly favour authentic brand relationships over transactional marketing interactions. Running clubs offer organizations opportunities to participate in meaningful community development while building long-term customer relationships based on shared values and mutual support.
This approach requires fundamental shifts in strategic thinking, measurement frameworks, and organisational commitment to community welfare over short-term marketing gains. Organizations willing to invest in authentic community relationships will discover sustainable competitive advantages unavailable through traditional marketing channels.
The following analysis examines Sunday Shuffle, a Sandton-based running club that demonstrates effective community development and authentic brand partnership models, providing practical frameworks for organizations seeking genuine community engagement strategies.
