Inside Clif Bar’s return to its running roots

For years, Clif Bars have featured instantly recognizable packaging showing rock climbers clinging precariously to overhangs. But the company has plenty of history with athletes who prefer to challenge themselves on solid ground.

Founded in 1992, Clif Bar & Company has been involved in running since its inception, especially during its first 20 years, according to Brooke Donberg, director of partnerships and activation, and with interest in running on the rise, the brand is doubling down on the sport. The new approach is focused on driving both sales and brand awareness, she said.

“We’re in a moment where a brand can pull all sorts of levers around the running space,” Donberg told Marketing Brew. “I am more excited than ever to retarget and speak to that core audience that helped us build our brand, but then, because [running] is so relevant and cool these days, we’re also able to reach younger consumers. From a consumer target standpoint, I think running is a really great sweet spot for us to move the needle.”

Hard core

Core to Clif’s current running strategy is a partnership with the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), which makes it the official energy bar of the Boston Marathon. The deal kicked off in March, about a month ahead of this year’s marathon, and is set to last through 2027.

Clif previously partnered with the BAA, but it took a pause during the pandemic, Donberg said; after her team tapped Excel Sports Management to help figure out its broader sports strategy, the agency recommended a return to running, Stephanie Arpaia, its VP of brand marketing, told us.

While part of this year’s partnership included handing out Clif bars to marathon finishers in recovery bags, it went beyond samples. Ahead of the race, Clif ran a campaign called “Raise Your Bar,” donated 10 race bibs to athletes who came within 10 seconds of qualifying, had a presence at the Boston Marathon Expo, and took over a bar near the finish line, Rosebar Boston, for the week leading up to the race.

For that week, Rosebar became known as “The Clif Bar,” where the brand hosted panel discussions, gave out samples, and generally provided “a place for runners and spectators to fuel up,” Donberg said. Now, she’s thinking about how Clif Bar can play a role in runners’ training journeys throughout the year.

“The beauty of a partnership like Boston is they have year-round events, and so we’re able to be always-on with them,” Donberg said. “It really allows a brand to continue to build on their creativity and continue to show up in meaningful ways year over year.”

Off-course

During Clif’s earlier days in the running space, the brand’s approach focused on engaging with already loyal consumers and other athletes who might be interested in giving Clif bars a try, Donberg said. Her team’s new philosophy with the sport, though, is to “extend our reach” beyond those at the top of their running game, she said. In addition to working with the BAA around the Boston Marathon, Clif also partnered with exercise tracking app Strava, which has become popular among runners and marketers alike.

In the month leading up to the Boston Marathon, Clif created a Strava challenge offering a discount on products purchased from its website to participants who completed 129 minutes of activity, in honor of the race’s 129th anniversary. The challenge allowed the brand to connect with athletes outside of the city and drive DTC sales, Donberg said, and Clif has run other activations on the app since.

“The challenges that we’ve run this year have been incredibly successful,” she said. “We blew our KPIs out of the water, and so we really have seen running in particular as not just an awareness driver, but as a business driver as well.”

That’s a change from the brand’s earlier sports marketing days; with “running becoming culturally cool and relevant in a way that it wasn’t necessarily in the past,” Donberg and her team are now able to use the sport to drive sales among more than elite runners, she said.

Moving forward, Donberg said she’s looking to expand into “other activities that runners are participating in,” like strength training and Hyrox fitness competitions, as well as upcoming global sports events like the World Cup and Olympics.

“Knowing that runners are enthusiasts around these sports and around these moments, how can we leverage these moments and show up in a meaningful way with runners to be a part of that broader cultural conversation?” she said. “We want to reinforce the strategy that we’ve established and find creative ways to plus it up.”