Outrunning the competition with New Balance at the London Marathon

New Balance operates in one of the world's most competitive running categories, competing for attention and sales against some of the biggest brands in sport.

Around the London Marathon, the opportunity was to turn heightened consumer interest in running into measurable ecommerce growth for New Balance's FuelCell and Fresh Foam ranges. At the same time, rising paid search CPCs and weaker lower-funnel click-through rates were making it harder to generate efficient growth through traditional conversion activity alone.

Brave Bison needed to increase visibility, build demand for New Balance's hero running products and convert that interest across the UK and key European markets, while ensuring media and creative worked as one connected Paid Performance strategy.

Brave Bison developed an integrated paid media strategy spanning Paid Search, Paid Social and Programmatic Display, supported by Performance Creative, product feed management, data and technology.

On Meta, Dynamic Product Ads helped connect audiences with relevant products, while Google Ads and programmatic activity captured and developed demand across the customer journey. Audience-led creative was tailored to different stages of the funnel, from runners researching their next shoe to customers ready to purchase.

We consolidated accounts and managed product feeds in-house, giving the team greater control over campaign optimisation. Budgets could then be adjusted in real time across the UK, Spain and France based on performance and market demand.

The campaign increased running sales by 15% year on year, delivered a 19% increase in paid social revenue and drove a 186% uplift in consumer search volume.