Nike’s latest marathon campaign is in the pages of the New York Times

Nike’s been known to make a splash around major marathons, even when it’s not an official sponsor.

Following this year’s New York City Marathon, that splash is in ink.

For the first time this year, the New York Times published the full list of marathon finishers in print, an effort that Nike is supporting. The brand sponsored the special sections of the Times on Monday and Tuesday, and it has also been appearing alongside the paper’s digital and newsletter assets, according to Amy Oelkers, SVP of ad sales at New York Times Advertising, who spoke exclusively to Marketing Brew about how the campaign came together.

The campaign falls in line with Nike’s general approach to running sponsorship, which has focused on “moments that mean something to runners,” Seema Simmons, VP and general manager of Nike Running for North America, told us last year.

It’s also indicative of two cultural touchstones that have been of high interest to advertisers, Oelkers said: sports and nostalgia.

Name in lights print

The Times has printed a partial finishers list since 1994, but this year marks the first time the paper included every finisher’s name, which spanned several pages of its Monday and Tuesday national editions. Finishers’ names were broken out by official finish times, with the first half in Monday’s paper and the second half in Tuesday’s. Copies were available in some Nike stores in the city, and runners were able to get them for free at the Times’ online shop.

“There are these moments within sports specifically [when] you just want that actual, physical reminder of the moment,” Oelkers said.

In Monday’s edition, the brand also filled its space with an ode to the marathon course that ended with the line, “I can make it across the finish line anywhere.” Nike ads are slated to appear across the Times’ digital ecosystem through Friday. The brand also bought out-of-home ads throughout the city over the weekend, and hosted a series of events including a pasta dinner, shakeout run, and post-race medal engravings.

Nike has been advertising in the Times after the marathon for the past three years, Oelkers said. Last year, the brand took over six pages of the paper with a list of marathon training woes and ailments that ended with the sentence, “I have this sinking, nagging, terrible, wonderful feeling that I’m going to do it all over again next year.” The first page of last year’s spread, under a photo of runners, featured text on a bright-red background that read, “I ran 26.2 miles and all I got was my name in the paper.”

When the New York Times Advertising team approached Nike with the idea to print the full list this year, it felt like a natural extension of the partnership, Oelkers said.

Print is dead, long live print

In the age of AI and social media, print assets aren’t necessarily considered the splashiest tool in advertising. But with both nostalgia and sports arguably at peak cultural value, print does have a certain pull with some advertisers, Oelkers told us. Moments like the New York Knicks’ NBA championship win and marathon coverage tend to make people hungry for keepsakes, which opens a door for marketers, she added.

“They love digital, they understand it, they understand consumers are there, and they’re reading, and they’re taking in the information, but that physical touching, seeing, and keeping, I think, is the thing that’s the most important and why print is just so huge,” Oelkers said.

Sports also tends to be a fairly brand-safe environment, she said, and while there’s certainly always something to cheer for in New York, between the Knicks win and the World Cup, sports culture was more prevalent than ever in the city this summer.

To keep that ball rolling beyond historic, international events, Oelkers and her team plan to continue pitching brands on supporting “the stories that are surrounding the moments,” like athlete and fan backstories, she said. And in running, fans and athletes are often one in the same.

“Running is one of the rare sports where elite athletes and everyday runners share the same starting line,” Tanya Hvizdak, Nike’s GM of global running, said in an email. “At Nike, we believe every runner deserves to be celebrated for pushing the limits of their own human potential.”