Running in Denmark

Running is very popular in DK

Running is very popular in DK, and the number of runners are still growing. We have more than 750.000 people who are running on a regular basis. The vast majority are not organized in clubs, but are running with friends, colleges or alone.

Comunities

We have a lot of different running communities in Denmark, Some are run by single persons (amateurs) and others are run by profesionals as  businesses.

These are the meeting point for lots of the more serious runers – often  you see the marathon runners and alike dominate the forums and blog areas.

They discuss everything from gadgets to training and runs – and of course equipment.

I think these communities are important for the introduction of ground breaking new equipment, if you don’t have the money to go for a big brand building introduction.

On Running is not present in any of these communities.

Go to Market strategy?

It’s not clear what go-to-market strategy On Running are following in Denmark.

The executive summary is something like this:

The shoes are only available in one single running shop in one city, the pricing is very high, and the news about the shoe and the brand is not gotten thru anywhere in this country.

There are several very established running shops in Denmark, some large sports equipment retailers with shops around the country, and we have a lot of webshops that are into running shoes. On Running is only found in one place – Byman.

The pricing is strange. The asking price is dkk. 1.800,- or some EUR 240,-. The shoes are for sale in the On Running eShop for EUR 159,- at the same time. Something is not right.

The On Running Brand is very new, and in my mind there is no doubt that you have to make sure that runners get to hear and learn about the new invention. You have to build some hype, and let people try the shoes out – this is not done from one single shop asking for a very high price for the product. In the Byman webshop the Cloudsurfer is the most expensive running shoe of all in the shop.

To me it looks as if the introduction of On Running in Denmark is gone wrong from the start – actually without a proper strategy.