What are the major running trends for 2018? ISPO.com asked the industry about the various running topics and determined these seven most important developments for the year 2018 with the input of the sports industry. The trends in pictures.
Trend 1, Customization: Brooks Running presented the FitStation with partner SuperFeet at ISPO Munich 2018. With it, runners can put together their very personal running shoe. Adidas is also at the forefront of customization with its Speedfactory.
Trend 2, Professional running shoe advice: The selection of running shoes has grown enormous. Runners can lose sight of the big picture. This makes perfect advice in the stores all the more important. Which shoe fits the individual needs of the consumer? The most important thing for the customers: Fast help, clear messages and even more precise results with new digital analysis systems.
Trend 3, Influencer motivation: Running has long since arrived in the social media. Brands have discovered influencers such as bloggers and athletes. With its #runyourworld campaign, Saucony, for example, uses bloggers that bring users closer to the most beautiful corners of various metropolises in posts, pictures and blog entries and thus encourage them to jog.
Trend 4, Trailrunning has come to stay: For the majority of runners, the experience of nature is more important than measurable results (according to Salomon, this is the case for 72 percent of runners). Away from the paved paths, Trailrunning offers just that: away from the noise of the city, nature on footpaths provides a varied and demanding ambience for a real running experience.
Trend 5, target group women continues to grow: Gone are the days when the sporting goods industry primarily produced for men. Women play a particularly important role as a target group in running. This is also noticeable in influencers, where Puma, with Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne or the New York City Ballet, for example, deliberately relies on strong women.
Trend 6, Running Communities for more fun running: Whether students, young managers or sporty mothers, running is becoming more and more of a community experience, especially in big cities. More and more runners are doing their rounds together in self-organized running groups or professionally set up running communities. This is also the case with Icebug's "Forest Femmes", where women meet for joint trail running.
Trend 7, Perfect data analysis thanks to wearables, apps & co: Apps like Runtastic are now used by tens of millions of runners. The exact evaluation of distances, times, pace or calorie consumption is easily possible for everyone. With increasingly sophisticated wearables, all this becomes even more precise.
