Overview

Brooks Running partnered with billups to execute a high-impact Out-of-Home (OOH) campaign during the 2026 London Marathon (April 6 – May 3) in the UK (EMEA). Faced with one of the most crowded and competitive moments on the athletic calendar, billups designed a journey-led OOH strategy to help Brooks cut through the noise. By mapping media placements directly to how runners, supporters, commuters, and sports-engaged audiences navigated London throughout marathon season, the campaign delivered strong visibility, significant impression overdelivery, and earned brand value beyond paid OOH.

Campaign Highlights

• 42.3M Gross Impressions: Delivered 6.4M bonus impressions with a 17.8% overdelivery.

• 4 Weeks of Continuous Visibility: Maintained campaign presence across the four week period

• Victoria Cross Track Domination & Taxi Supersides: Paired station track domination with taxi supersides, generating €56.9k in net overdelivery value.

The Challenge

The London Marathon represents a peak commercial opportunity, but cutting through the citywide noise presents a steep hurdle. With multiple global running brands heavily contesting consumer attention, the challenge for Brooks was not simply competing on raw media spend, but capturing a fragmented audience across a multi-stage weekend experience. Brooks needed a strategic way to cut through this crowded running moment without relying on a single environment, meaning the campaign had to show up seamlessly across the different ways runners, supporters, commuters, route viewers, and post-race crowds experienced London.

The Solution

To solve this fragmentation challenge and help Brooks stand out, billups engineered a layered OOH strategy specifically designed around the complete audience journey. Rather than relying on standard media buys, the billups team curated each format to fulfill a distinct strategic role in capturing moving crowds:

• High-Frequency Travel Environments: Rail networks and Underground Digital 6 screens captured continuous transit flows, building repeated touchpoints as audiences travelled into and around the city.

• High-Impact Central Dominance: Large-format Digital Gateways and Victoria Cross Track Domination created unmissable focal points in high-dwell station hubs, capturing peak arrival and emotional post-race celebration crowds.

• Mobile Coverage & Social Asset Creation: Electric taxi supersides extended visibility far beyond fixed sites into wider London streetscapes, providing continuous citywide mobility while simultaneously doubling as a premium visual asset for Brooks' Instagram channels.

Planning & Execution

To prove how journey-led planning solves the challenge of a crowded event, billups validated unit selection and executed seamless multi-partner management across top media owners:

• Strategic Unit Selection: Fixed transit units anchored baseline frequency during travel hours, while large-format station takeovers generated iconic central London dominance during high-footfall moments. Mobile taxi supersides bridged the gaps between static locations, maintaining continuous brand presence along spectator routes and urban hotspots.

• Multi-Format Technical Coordination: Managed end-to-end operations across diverse digital and static formats, overseeing strict asset ordering, standardized file naming conventions, pre-campaign spec checks, and synchronized delivery across all media partners.

• Cross-Channel Synergy: Coordinated creative execution of the electric taxi supersides to fulfill a dual purpose: operating as mobile physical touchpoints across London while providing Brooks with social media content to extend visibility. 

The Results

The results directly validate the campaign strategy, proving that planning around the full audience journey allows a brand to cut through a heavily contested event, deliver exceptional media efficiency, and unlock value far beyond the initial OOH booking:

• Cut Through with Exceptional Efficiency: Reached 42.3 million gross impressions against 35.9 million contracted. Yielding 6.4 million bonus impressions (17.8% overdelivery) across every stage of the marathon journey.

• Delivered Measurable Media Value: Achieved €56.9k in net overdelivery value, boosting total incremental net value to 25.6% of the campaign investment.

• Proved Full-Journey Reach: Demonstrated that pairing high-frequency transit and station dominance with mobile taxi formats successfully captured fragmented marathon crowds across transit, route, and leisure zones.

• Created Value Beyond Paid Media: The electric taxi supersides proved so visually compelling that Brooks integrated them into their own Instagram content, extending physical OOH dominance into organic social engagement.