Run Happy Island

What if we created a theme park just for runners and toured it to marathons across the country?

As the official footwear sponsor of the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, Brooks had a 5,000 square foot space at dozens of big races each year. While most other shoe brands were setting up pop-up shoe stores or handing out energy bars, we wanted to do something special.

Myself and art director, Blakely Dadson spent a weekend at a race watching what kind of runners were showing up, who they brought with them and how they moved through the space. In response, we came up with Run Happy Island, a run-centric island nation (and traveling theme park) that introduces runners and their families to the Brooks brand.

Over the year-long development of Run Happy Island, we wrote elaborate island backstories, invented new animals, wrote a national anthem, drew up official seals, created a digital tracking system and concepted a giant hybrid submarine/bus that's still circumnavigating North America.

Every visit to the island begins with a stop at the customs hut where visitors sign up via iPad for a Run Happy Island passport. Armed with their official documents, visitors collected stamps as they rode a giant bucking shoe, challenged their friends to a race to the top of a smoking volcano, watched an hourly stage show (complete with dance numbers and puppets), won free merchandise at the colorful marketplace and a climbed aboard a giant submersible sneaker to have their gait analyzed.

Launched in August of 2013, Run Happy Island has proved to be a big success for Brooks. Thanks to the passport system, visitors spent more than twice as much time as they did in previous Brooks expo booths. With the barcode tracking structure we integrated into the passports, we were also able to digitally arm visitors with their gait analysis information which led to four times more shoe and apparel sales than before.