Starting Line
There’s been a lot of talk in the past few weeks about what brands are doing at events to create experiences, build community, and so on. The majority of those discussions center around how most of these things are starting to look and feel interchangeable to the people experiencing them - and how the value is slipping away. That’s exactly why we wanted to talk to Hilary Fenet about Halo, because she’s creating opportunities for brands to get creative again - and to create meaningful experiences for everyone coming to big races and events.
The Business Behind the Best Activation at UTMB (And Beyond)
Hilary Fenet just pulled off one of the most talked-about brand activations at UTMB — a full hotel takeover in Chamonix for Rabbit, complete with a clubhouse for the week, community breakfasts, and an espresso cart in the parking lot. But the company behind it, Halo, started with a much smaller and much less glamorous moment: Hilary booking a hotel on the wrong side of a mountain before a race in the Italian Dolomites.
In this conversation, Hilary walks through how a bad hotel booking turned into a genuine business insight — brands were building incredible experiences for their sponsored athletes, but ignoring the people actually buying their gear. She breaks down how Halo builds these activations from the ground up, the data that makes the case for in-person experience over pure digital marketing, and what it actually takes to scale something this bespoke to multiple events happening around the world at once.
It’s Easier Than You Think
We know that working at a brand can feel like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole — plenty of opportunities, never enough bandwidth to get them done. Finding top-tier athletes and creators to develop content for your campaigns is a huge one, and Popfly solves exactly that. You can write a brief for exactly what you need and get it done without a ton of extra effort. If you haven’t already looked into Popfly, it’s worth a closer look - click the link below to get a custom demo.
Job Of The Week
🏆 SRAM is hiring in Europe! They just opened up a Marketing Manager role for the region.
⛰️ HOKA has a Product Director role open for their Performance Apparel.
🤘 Chris King Components is looking for a Sales and Marketing Manager in Portland, Oregon. Join this legendary brand (and hang with us in PDX)!
Article Of The Week
This week, it’s not a single article - but an entire library of articles worth digging in to. If you’re not familiar with Dan Coe and The Brand Report, you should be. And in either case, stay tuned, because he’s going to be on the podcast very soon - and we are excited to sit down with him!
Show Notes
Second Nature Is Supported By Halo
Halo is a hospitality platform built by trail runners specifically for sports and event travel. They work with brands, event organizers and professional leagues to simplify one of the most operationally painful parts of any event: lodging. If you’re a brand thinking about experiential marketing, managing travel for your team or professional athletes, or a league handling lodging for your athletes and fans, Halo’s platform gives your brand a custom hotel booking platform and locks in better rates so you’re not managing hotel logistics from scratch. They’re already working with names like Western States, Aravaipa, Rabbit and New Balance.
And if you’re just heading to a race or event yourself this year, it’s worth checking out, too. Same platform with great rates, community, perks from band partners and less hassle. If any of this sounds like you, reach out to their team and tell them you heard about Halo on Second Nature.
BPC - Brand, Product, Content
BPC is our closing segment where we share Brands we’ve discovered, Products we’re using and Content that we love.
🏃♂️ Rabbit: We are all big fans Rabbit, and the latest activation at UTMB was another incredible entry in their playbook.
📔 Theo of Golden (Book): We hadn’t heard of this book prior to Hilary’s mention of it, but since then, it started showing up everywhere!
💨 Climatic: This product helps clear out your lungs, which has been extremely useful lately with all the forest fires in the Northwest.
📘 War of Art (Book): This book gets read by Aaron on a yearly basis (sometimes more) as a swift kick of motivation. Highly recommended!
📕 Shoe Dog (Book): Hilary highlighted this book as a favorite - and this has been a popular mention by many other guests who are trying to build something meaningful.
Thank You
A big thank you to Hilary and Halo for supporting Second Nature - and to everyone who has been listening to the podcast and joining us in the Slack channel the past few years! Stay tuned for next week’s episode, we’re talking to a founder who is still in the process of creating and launching their vision - a much different inflection point than most episodes of the podcast, but we can’t wait to share it with you. Stay tuned!
Liked this episode, esp the later part. I’ve heard a lot about “founder mode” in tech/biotech, but not as much in running/outdoor. as well as the fundraising and hiring discussion!
It didn’t feel like a typical "atheletes starting their business” conversation—it was really a business conversation rooted in running. Would love to hear more
LOVED the rabbit clubhouse! Excited to tune into this one.