One idea worth thinking about, every week.

Dan Coe’s weekly brief on the brand move that mattered — and what it means for the people building it.

Read by CMOs, founders and brand leaders.

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Summer rundown

We’ve been busy this summer, publishing and also launching the Index, our canon of the creative work shaping outdoor, sport, and lifestyle. Here’s a rundown to get you caught up.

Campaign key visual: a runner photographed from below between Manhattan towers, a route line labeled Waverly, Spring and Canal St around her, beside the words Let's Race, New York and a stat row of miles, pace and runs on chartreuse.
ArticleHOKA's Fall Flagship Lives on Strava, on the Street, and in the Feed.

Ask where this campaign lives and the answer is a map of the city, not an address. 38,739 runners in eight days, and a clear read on what the website is for now.

Two women on a dirt trail on a grassy ridge, green hills and low cloud behind, both looking at a phone one of them is holding.
ArticleAllTrails Decides Where America Goes Outside. Nobody Meets Them at Hike Two.

95 million people decide where to go on an app the industry has never modeled as a partner or a threat. Nobody is built for the second hike.

David Carson photographed from below against a bright blue sky, strings of multicoloured bunting behind him.
ArticleRapha Is Rebuilding Its Voice. Both of Its New Answers Are Old.

A brand rebuilding its voice with material from 1978 and 1995. That may be the smartest thing available to it.

Garmin CIRQA
ArticleThe Wearer Owns the Number. The Companies Are Fighting Over the Mirror.

Wearables grew again last quarter. So did the documented guilt. Five companies made very different bets on whose number it is.

On — Run On Clouds
ArticleOn Figured Out Who Owns Performance. It Was Never the Shoe.

The best On, Nike and Hoka on the same trail aren’t the difference. The human is, and On rebuilt its running brand around that.

Caleb Olson runs up the Escarpment at dawn in a white perforated long-sleeve with the ACG triangle, spectators reaching in with phones
IndexNike ACG Radical AirFlow

The shirt Nike wouldn’t explain until it had already won Western States. It sold out the morning it dropped.

The norda 055 in Strato turned outsole-to-camera, lit against a warm studio gradient
IndexNorda 055

Two years in the making. 253 miles at Cocodona, the outright win and the course record, weeks before it launched.

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One idea worth thinking about, every week.

Dan Coe’s weekly brief on the brand move that mattered — and what it means for the people building it.

Read by CMOs, founders and brand leaders.