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  "description": "Here's what an historic sporting moment taught me about marketing your product to the masses. ",
  "path": "/what-adidas-and-the-london-marathon-taught-me-about-product-marketing/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-29T16:13:04.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.productmarketingalliance.com",
  "tags": [
    "put it well",
    "messaging framework",
    "positioning",
    "narrative",
    "launch plan",
    "Adidas shares have soared since it happened"
  ],
  "textContent": "On Sunday, something happened at the London Marathon that stopped me in my tracks (pun well intended!).\n\nSabastian Sawe crossed the finish line in 1:59:30, the **first-ever official sub-2-hour marathon**. His teammate Yomif Kejelcha crossed in 1:59:41 — on his _marathon debut_. Tigist Assefa broke the **women-only world record** with 2:15:41.\n\nThis is three athletes breaking three world records... and they were all in the **same shoe** made by Adidas.\n\nAs someone who spends their days thinking about product marketing, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd just watched.\n\nThis was an unreal historic sporting moment, but it was also one of the most effective pieces of product marketing I've ever seen. Let's get into why...\n\nKenya's Sabastian Sawe celebrates making history [Matthew Childs/Reuters]\n\n## The narrative that got stolen\n\nFor years, Nike has owned the \"breaking barriers\" story in running. Their campaigns, their athletes, and their cultural footprint were all carefully built around the idea of pushing the absolute limit of human performance. It's brilliant positioning. Or at least, it was.\n\nBecause on Sunday morning in London, Adidas quietly made that narrative theirs.\n\nThere was no loud launch campaign, billboard, or carefully timed press release. Just three athletes in their shoes running times the world had never seen before... doing the very thing Nike had spent millions of dollars _talking_ about.\n\nMore than luck, that's what happens when your product **actually delivers on your promise**.\n\n## It was a collaboration\n\nHere's what makes this more than a feel-good story for the Adidas marketing team.\n\nThe Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 — the shoe all three athletes wore — wasn't handed to them at the start line. It was developed _with_ them. The apparel too: the Techfit+ Endurance Shorts, the Climacool+ Singlet, the Techfit+ Endurance Suit. Every piece was engineered in close partnership between the athletes and the Adidas innovation team, over years.\n\nPatrick Nava, General Manager at Adidas Running, put it well: the historic result was \"a testament to the years of hard work and dedication they have made, alongside our innovation team.\"\n\nAnd when Sawe crossed the finish line, he said something that every product marketer should screenshot and stick above their desk:\n\n> _\"It reflects the hard work behind the scenes, the support of my team, and the role of innovation in helping me push beyond limits.\"_\n\nThat is your customer, marketing your product to the entire world in real time.\n\n## The lesson we don't always want to hear\n\nHere's the part that stings a little, and I say this as someone who loves a good messaging framework as much as anyone.\n\n> **You can be the best product marketer in the world, and still lose to a better product.**\n\nYou can nail your positioning, craft a beautiful narrative, build a flawless launch plan... and if your competitor's product genuinely does something yours can't, the market will do their marketing for them.\n\nFor free. At scale. In ways no budget can buy.\n\nEvery journalist covering the race led with \"Adidas.\" Every running forum is dissecting the shoe tech. Every amateur runner who watched on Sunday is now Googling the Adizero.\n\nIn fact, Adidas shares have soared since it happened.\n\nAdidas didn't earn that coverage purely through its marketing team. Their _product_ earned it.\n\n## What this means for PMMs\n\nI think the best product marketers understand something easy to lose sight of when you're deep in a launch plan: your job isn't to compensate for a weak product with strong messaging.\n\nYour job is to build such a clear, compelling bridge between what a product _actually does_ and what a customer _actually needs_ that when the defining moment comes, the product can speak for itself.\n\nThat means being close to the product and the customer, and understanding the real-world problems your product solves well enough to recognize a \"London Marathon moment\" when it's coming, and being ready to amplify it.\n\nTo me, the best marketing asset you will ever have isn't a campaign but a customer who genuinely can't stop talking about you.\n\nBut they'll only do that if you give them something worth talking about.\n\nSo yes, obsess over your positioning. Craft the narrative. Build the launch plan.\n\nAnd then make sure the shoes can run the race.",
  "title": "What Adidas and the London Marathon taught me about product marketing",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-29T16:18:33.185Z"
}