Glossy Pop Newsletter: The New Community Playbook — Why brand-hosted walks and runs are gaining traction

Welcome to The New Community Playbook, a Glossy Pop Newsletter series

A brand’s community has never been more important. The community — encompassing customers, followers, and others who engage with its content and messaging — has become the lifeblood of a brand. What’s more, engaged customers are likely to attract more customers. In an August survey of its 74,000 Instagram followers, Thingtesting, a brand-discovery platform, showed that “close friends and family” are the most powerful influences on the purchases someone makes. Comparatively, influencers came in fourth place.

Though influencers aren’t going anywhere, there is a rising fatigue with the excess of unboxings, lavish press trips and exaggerated claims. See: Tarte’s Dubai trip at the start of the year and Mikayla Nogueira’s recent “mascara gate” scandal. Who consumers now trust are friends, family and enthusiastic customers who aren’t formally influencers.

As such, savvy brands are increasingly working overtime to capture the attention and loyalty of everyday customers, including by offering them a sense of community in increasingly creative ways.

For the first part of this series, we’re exploring the unexpected emerging trend of brands inviting their communities on walks and hikes. Here’s what three popular, young brands had to say about why they’re doing it and why it’s working.

On Tuesday at 11 a.m. Mara Beauty, the 5-year-old skin-care brand, hosted a walk from New York City’s Meatpacking District to Om Juice Bar in the Flatiron neighborhood, where it currently has a smoothie collaboration in celebration of its new Sea Sculpt Body Oil. The brand spread the word via social, letting its 53,000 Instagram followers know that it would be hosting a walk and allowing them to RSVP via a link in its Stories. Allison McNamara, Mara’s founder, also posted about the event for her 46,000 personal followers.

The brand chose to only accept the first 15 RSVPs, letting others know it would be in touch should there be another event. At the end of the walk, participants received the smoothie, as well as some Mara merchandise that is not for sale.

“There’s been this shift toward bringing the marketing back to the consumer versus marketing to the influencer,” said McNamara. “For the past five years, it’s been a heavy [focus on] marketing toward influencers, so that they will post your product and then the customer will see it on their channels. But there’s this new wave of [brands] putting the emphasis on the people who have been supporting them for years.” To that end, one customer McNamara has been in touch with via DM since the brand’s inception showed up for the walk.

McNamara acknowledged that, because Mara is not a fitness brand, a walk or hike may not immediately seem an obvious fit. But, the brand’s first foray into the body-care category felt like the perfect link, she said. “[Launching body oil] was a great impetus for doing things that felt more ‘health and wellness,'” she said. The New York City walk was the brand’s second walk — the first, also in celebration of the body oil, was a hike in Los Angeles on July 21.

These activities lend themselves well to community events, McNamara said. “Everyone walks at different paces, [but] throughout the course of the walk — [like] when you get to a stoplight — people change who they’re talking to; they’re making new friends.” She added that Mara chooses easy, paved routes, to ensure the activity feels inclusive, in spite of one’s fitness level.

Laney Crowell, founder of Saie, said community events offer something that simply can’t be mimicked by digital activations. “We live in this digital age now that isn’t fulfilling any of our souls,” she said.

Saie’s recent “Run Club” event was part of its program dubbed “Play with Saie,” which is focused on orchestrating feel-good activities. The run club was inspired by Lindsey Gilson, Saie’s operations manager and an avid runner. The brand first shared the event with its private Facebook Group, the Clean Beauty Crew, which has over 6,000 members. It’s existed since 2019, before Saie officially launched. The brand also spread the word to its Instagram (241,000) and TikTok followers (286,000).

The Run Club was just one of a host of free, mostly athletically-oriented events the brand has hosted, but it was one of its bigger ones, with around 30 people attendees. “We’re having a lot of fun, and people feel that from the brand,” Crowell said. “When we do these events, it’s like you’re hanging out with the brand — and what a treat to get a fun activity that’s organized for you; you just get to come and enjoy yourself. And, of course, you get a great goody bag at the end.”

While Saie is not hosting three-course meals at a fancy restaurant for its community members, it treats its Play With Saie activations much like brands treat influencer and press events. “We want everything [we do] to be an immersive experience; we want to invite you into our world. So, [each event] has to have all of our little touches and aesthetics. For the Saie Run Club, we had Saie running bibs for everybody. Our run instructor, Lindsey, was wearing Saie lilac. And then, at the end of the run, we had Saie lunchboxes that had fruit with our little Saie sticker on it and Saie granola. We also had Saie baseball hats and Saia towels to wipe yourself down with.” The run was not tied to a specific launch.

When athleisure brand Set Active opened its West Village store in June, founder Lindsey Carter wanted to do something special to celebrate with the community. The brand has 446,000 followers on Instagram. The idea she came up with was to partner with the influencer Tinx (552,000 followers on Instagram, 1.5 million on TikTok), who regularly posts about Set Active. “She’s known for her walks, which she’s coined ‘Rich Mom Walks,'” Carter said. The hashtag #richmomwalk has 3.6 million views on TikTok. Carter texted Tinx in April to gauge her interest, and she signed on.

The brand flew Tinx to NYC to host a Rich Mom Walk ending at the new Set store, which was offering a special Tinx discount. As part of the deal, she also hosted an influencer dinner for the brand, which was also in celebration of the store opening. She was paid by the brand for the partnership on both. Carter deemed the walk a success, reporting that 500 people showed up. It happened to be the same week that Tinx’s book, released in May, hit the bestseller list. The participants were all gifted a copy.

Of the effect of the special discount, Carter said, “We crushed our [sales] goal [for the day] within the first 20 minutes.” It helped that the brand’s community had been hotly anticipating the store’s opening, she said. Other than at its Melrose pop-up, customers had not had an opportunity to shop Set Active IRL. What’s more, New York is one of the brand’s top sales locations.

“Whether it was because they were a fan of Tinx or a fan of Set, [we] just like kind of blew it out of the water,” Carter said, regarding the walk’s business effect. The organic nature of the partnership was why it was so successful, Carter said. “When Tinx does her Rich Mom Walks, 99% of the time, she’s wearing Set.”

Spate Trend Watch: Gold makeup is on the rise

Gold makeup is the latest TikTok trend to take the spotlight.

With a 949% month-over-month increase in views, at 321,300, TikTok’s gold makeup trend has ignited a blaze of creativity: The “latte makeup” trend celebrates warm, comforting tones, while the “honey lips” trend — also heavy on gold — is all about juicy, glassy shine. All in all, the gold makeup trend focuses on achieving a radiant, sun-kissed glow.

As consumers continue to seek a natural, dewy look, the allure of a glowy appearance has maintained its desirability. The gold makeup trend capitalizes on this desire, as it merges with the ongoing trend of glowy looks.

“As Spate delves into the latest beauty trends, we’re on the lookout for captivating movements that resonate with the social media sphere. The beauty landscape is ever-changing, and it’s this constant evolution that keeps us intrigued, exploring new avenues of expression and style,” said Yarden Horwitz, co-founder of Spate.

Inside our coverage:

Makeup artist and founder Patrick Ta on finding success through social media

Mob Beauty teams with influencer Rose Siard for collab

Anthropologie taps actor Phoebe Tonkin for ‘Falling for Anthro’ campaign

Reading list:

The Met keeps releasing clothing with Pacsun. Why?

Have influencers become integral to product launches?

Bama Rush is a strange, sparkly window into how America shops