New Balance London Big Half 2026

Key Points

• Leeds-based creative agency Syn orchestrated a series of brand activations for New Balance during London’s Big Half and Big Relay.
• The campaign marked the launch of New Balance’s latest performance running shoe, the SuperComp Rebel v1, highlighting its precision-engineered propulsion plate, Infinion midsole foam, and FANTOMFIT technology.
• Activations spanned four London boroughs—Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lewisham, and Greenwich—along with a dedicated finish-line festival zone in Greenwich Park.
• On-course engagement included three interactive cheer zones with cheer bodegas, gumball reward machines, and live photography walls.
• The festival zone featured product try-on spaces, treadmills, refreshment stations, mirror signing walls, and custom bandana-making workshops featuring illustrations by run club Runner Beans.
• Retail experiences extended to the New Balance Oxford Street flagship store, offering medal and relay baton engraving services for participants.

Leeds (The Leeds Times) September 11, 2026 — Leeds creative agency Syn delivered a comprehensive series of experiential brand activations for athletic footwear giant New Balance to mark London’s Big Half and the concurrent New Balance Big Relay over the weekend. The high-profile campaign was strategically timed to coincide with the official launch of the brand’s latest performance running shoe, the SuperComp Rebel v1, utilizing the capital’s premier half marathon to drive direct consumer engagement and spotlight the product’s technical capabilities.

What were the key technical features showcased during the launch?

The Big Half and the Big Relay presented an ideal platform to launch the new footwear model and showcase its core engineering. The product-led campaign focused heavily on demonstrating key features of the SuperComp Rebel v1, including its precision-engineered propulsion plate, Infinion midsole foam, and advanced FANTOMFIT technology. By placing the product at the center of a major mass-participation sporting event, the strategy aimed to reinforce New Balance’s positioning as a premium athletic brand operating at the intersection of culture and sport, while simultaneously driving new consumer acquisition.

How did the campaign engage runners across the London boroughs?

The Big Half route traditionally celebrates the cultural diversity of London by taking runners through four distinct boroughs: Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lewisham, and Greenwich. Alongside this, the Big Relay offered a four-person team format along the same course with legs of approximately 5km each, enabling participants of all skill levels to experience race day without completing the full distance.

To maintain high energy along the route, Syn developed three dedicated cheer zones featuring immersive cheer bodegas.

These spaces were equipped with branded merchandise, product displays, interactive cheer signs, floor graphics, cheer platforms, and branded flags. Supporters were invited to collect branded items and craft personalised messages of encouragement. Completing a sign rewarded supporters with a token for a branded gumball machine that unlocked specific prizes.

Furthermore, roaming brand ambassadors captured dynamic content throughout the day. Supporters were given the opportunity to take printed photographs and attach them directly to the exterior of the cheer bodegas, constructing a live, physical record of the running community as the event progressed.

What activities took place at the Greenwich Park festival zone?

Upon crossing the finish line in Greenwich Park, participants entered a vibrant festival zone where the SuperComp Rebel v1 took centre stage. A dedicated try-on space equipped with treadmills gave runners the immediate opportunity to test the footwear first-hand.

To foster a social post-race environment, the zone incorporated a refreshment station, a mirror signing wall, a live DJ, and a custom bandana-making workshop. Syn partnered with Runner Beans, a New Balance community partner and run club, to commission original illustrations representing each of the four boroughs traversed during the race. These bespoke designs were integrated into stickers, flags, t-shirts, and the stamps utilized within the customisable bandana workshop.

How was the race-day experience extended into retail?

The experiential journey did not conclude at the finish line; the activations extended directly into New Balance’s Oxford Street flagship store in central London. At the retail location, participating runners were invited to have their race medals and relay batons professionally engraved.

This service transformed standard race-day memorabilia into personalized keepsakes, successfully extending the emotional connection to the event and creating an additional touchpoint for consumers to engage with the brand in a physical retail environment.

Reflecting on the scale and execution of the project, Amarjit Kang, creative lead at Syn, noted:

“For us, the opportunity wasn’t simply to put New Balance branding along a race route. It was about creating reasons for people to actively participate and feel part of the community – whether that was making a sign for a runner, taking a photo, customising a bandana or spending time in the festival space. It’s been brilliant to partner with New Balance on bringing the activation to life, and the energy on race day showed what can happen when a brand creates an experience people genuinely want to be part of.”

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Background of the particular development

The collaboration between Syn and New Balance reflects a broader, industry-wide shift toward experiential marketing within the sportswear sector. Rather than relying solely on traditional advertising billboards or digital campaigns, major athletic brands increasingly invest in immersive, community-centered activations at mass-participation endurance events.

By embedding product launches directly into cultural fixtures like London’s Big Half—which attracts thousands of runners and spectators across multiple multicultural boroughs—brands can authentically connect with active consumer bases. Creative agencies like Syn are frequently commissioned to design these physical touchpoints, bridging the gap between technical product performance and community participation to foster long-term brand loyalty and drive retail conversion.

Prediction

This successful integration of experiential marketing and community-first product launches is expected to set a benchmark for future sportswear campaigns across the United Kingdom. For the local creative and events sector in Leeds and wider regional agencies, high-profile projects executed on a national scale in London demonstrate the capability of northern creative hubs to secure and deliver major international brand accounts.

For consumers and running communities, the trend toward interactive race-day engagement—ranging from personalized memorabilia to immersive try-out zones—means that participating in major athletic events will increasingly offer richer, more memorable brand interactions that extend well beyond the race course itself.