# Hoka turned Strava user data into live outdoor billboards, making runners the creative. *The brand pulled performance stats from logged runs and displayed them on digital OOH in real time.* By **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA, Principal** — The Stash Edge, Hako Shikin LLC. Published 2026-09-04. Canonical: https://www.pops4.com/stash/articles/hoka-2026-09-04t03-3 Subject: Hoka Tags: data-driven marketing, out-of-home advertising, community platforms, user-generated content, api integration, strava --- Hoka integrated Strava running data directly into a digital out-of-home campaign, according to Marketing Dive, personalizing outdoor ads with live athlete performance stats. When a runner logged a workout on Strava wearing Hoka shoes, the brand pulled select metrics—distance, pace, elevation—and displayed them on digital billboards in key metro markets. The campaign turned individual runs into public creative. The mechanism is data-driven outdoor media at scale. Hoka pulled permissioned user activity from Strava's API, filtered for runners who had logged Hoka footwear in their profile, then fed those stats to programmatic DOOH networks. The result: billboards that cycled through real athlete data, refreshing as new runs were logged. No actors, no staged shots. The runner became the ad. This works because it collapses the distance between product use and product marketing. Traditional ads show a hypothetical runner. This campaign showed your neighbor, mid-training block, wearing the same shoe you can buy today. The social proof is embedded in the format. Strava users who saw their own stats on a billboard were statistically likely to share it, extending reach at zero media cost. Marketing Dive noted the campaign drove measurable engagement on social, with runners posting photos of their own billboards and tagging the brand. The broader pattern: community platforms with structured data can become media inventory. Strava logs **over 3 billion activities annually** (according to the company's 2023 year-in-sport report). That is a vast pool of user-generated proof, timestamped and geotagged. Hoka treated it as creative supply. The steal for a small physical-product brand starts with identifying your structured data source. If you sell hydration packs and your customers log trail runs on AllTrails, you have the same raw material. If you sell kitchen tools and customers post recipe completions on a platform like Whisk, same. The play requires three components: permissioned API access, a filter for your product, and a display layer. Step one: negotiate data access. For a small brand, this means informal partnership. Reach out to the platform's brand team with a specific proposal: we will feature user activity in paid media, crediting the platform and driving signups. Offer co-marketing in exchange for API access. Strava, AllTrails, Goodreads, Untappd—all run partner programs for brands that can prove mutual benefit. Step two: build the filter and display. You do not need programmatic DOOH at this budget. Use a low-cost digital display in a single high-traffic location—your retail partner's window, a coworking space lobby, a trailhead kiosk. Rent a **55-inch display** and a **Raspberry Pi** (**under $400 total**). Write a simple script that pulls recent activity from the API, filters for users who mention your product or use a specific hashtag, and cycles through stats on-screen. Update every hour. Step three: activate the participants. Email or DM every user whose data appears on the display with a photo of their stats live on the screen. Provide the exact address and a two-day window. According to research from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, **68% of consumers** photograph DOOH ads that feature personalized content. Your users will do the same, tagging you and the platform. That secondary distribution is the ROI. A cookbook brand selling on Amazon could run this play with recipe completions from a partner app, displayed in a boutique grocery near a college campus. A barware brand could pull cocktail check-ins from Untappd and display them at a spirits festival booth. The cost is the display rental and API setup; the creative is free and self-replicating. The pattern scales beyond outdoor. Once you have structured user data flowing through an API, you can route it to email (individual stats recap), web (live leaderboard), or packaging (QR code linking to a personal activity page). Hoka used DOOH because running is a public, urban activity. Match your display layer to where your product is used. The risk is permission and data quality. Every stat you display must be explicitly opted in by the user, and you must verify product use. Hoka filtered for Strava profiles listing Hoka gear. You need the same proof gate, or the campaign becomes noise. Build the filter tight. ## The takeaway Turn user activity data from a partner platform into live display content, making customers the creative at near-zero production cost. --- ## Publisher **Hako Shikin LLC** — Virginia Beach, Virginia. Founded 1997. ASI 217876 · DUNS 18-204-6339. Principal and author: **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA**. - Author: https://www.huanggoodman.com/about - LLM context: https://www.pops4.com/stash/llms.txt - MCP endpoint, for AI agents: https://mcp.pops4.com/mcp - Client dashboard: https://dashboard.pops4.com/ - Catalogue: 70,000+ products, 200+ brands