Could your brand be someone’s third space?

The other week I spent a beautiful long weekend in the Lake District with a big group of friends. Most of us are turning 30 (!!) over the course of this year and next, which means that:

A) we had to find a weekend all twelve of us were free six months in advance

B) our idea of a group weekend is now an Airbnb in the Lake District, rather than the club nights and emergency Travelodge bookings we used to arrange at the last minute.

And C), that we needed to cook a hugeee brunch for us all!

Growing up aside, we got into the classic conversation about how we must all meet up more. Then we all agreed that this is, naturally, much easier said than done. For starters, two couples live abroad (the Netherlands and Spain), and the remaining 4 couples are scattered across London, Manchester and Leeds. But even for the ones who live close by, the conversation turned to what we actually do when we see each other. We meet at a pub. We drink. And then what?

Without this sounding too British, how do you meet your friends when it isn’t built around alcohol?

This is becoming a huge focus for brands, as more and more race to create the ‘third space’ that can solve that very problem.

And some of the group have already jumped into these new opportunities. One ad-hoc attends an embroidery evening at their local Uniqlo where they upcycle some clothing. One is in a Discord group run by the football club they support, where they play FIFA with other fans, and one mentioned how they occasionally go to the Puresport run club.

None of them necessarily bought more products from the brand behind their third space because it exists, but offering this activity has helped them feel more affinity for the brand behind it. They’ve given their customers something to do and people to do it with.

Why are we all looking for somewhere to go?

The sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” in his 1989 book ‘The Great Good Place’. Home is your first place, work is your second, and the third is everything in between: your local coffee shop, the barbers, the pub, any place where a community can come together.

Especially in England, the answer is often the pub.

We’ve all seen the news reports about how those places have gradually been disappearing, particularly for younger people in their teens, and it’s no surprise that Covid sped the decline up even more. Remote work removed the office (which subsequently removed a lot of the post-office drinks and gym classes I used to be in a better routine with). Nights out got more expensive (to the point where Joe Lycett even sponsored drinks at 30 pubs the other week). And social media promised us more connection, to then only become a tool that makes us feel like we’re keeping up with peoples lives, even though we’re only silently watching behind a screen.

Did you get a free pint??

This has, again unsurprisingly, resulted in 6.6% of adults in England now saying they feel lonely often or always, up from 5% a decade ago. It’s highest amongst 16 to 24-year-olds (9%), and my own focus group of 25 to 34-year-olds (8%). US is supposedly even higher, with Harvard’s Making Caring Common project finding that a fifth of adults are lonely, and two-thirds of those lonely adults say it’s because they don’t feel part of any meaningful group.

So people began building their own third spaces, and if your algorithm looks anything like mine, you’ll see a big way this has happened is through running clubs.

Strava’s 2024 Year in Sport report found run club participation was up 59%. And people are four times more likely to say they’d rather meet new friends at a fitness group than in a bar. Which is, more or less, the exact conclusion we came to over our sixth bottle of wine in the Lakes. (We did go to the parkrun the next morning… #balance).

But what does this have to do with brand strategy you ask?

Well, brands have very much noticed this trend.

Nike has opened Nike Studios, essentially Nike-branded gyms. Alo has yoga studios and Alo House. Miu Miu has a Literary Club. Othership, the sauna and ice bath club, has become a sober alternative to a night out. Run clubs in particular have proven themselves as marketing, because they’re free to join, they happen in public, and they produce an endless stream of content that nobody had to pay for.

But a lot of brands are now putting on an event and calling it a community. And those are two very different things.

The Puresport run club

When I lived in London, Puresport was one of the first brands to launch a run club. It started in April 2021, as a free weekly run every Wednesday from Battersea Park (conveniently right down the road from me). If you happened to be in London from 2023 onwards, you’ll know just how many other run clubs followed. But at least from my view on Queenstown Road, Puresport was the first and the biggest.

Oh to be mid twenties and living down the road from Battersea Park again!

Hundreds of runners would set off along the Thames in groups, with pacers and posters and an unbelievable amount of energy. By 2022 they’d had over 11,000 people through their clubs. And about 70% of them seemed to be wearing the bright pink, fastest Nike shoe of the moment (my very unofficial research).

Puresport was founded by two ex-Scotland rugby internationals looking for a natural alternative to painkillers, and it started out selling certified CBD and recovery products to athletes. So being part of the Puresport Run Club told the world something about you: you were a serious athlete. You might only have run 5k or 10k on a Wednesday night, but being in that pack signalled who you were.

I myself never actually went to one, potentially for that reason.

I consider myself an OK runner (five marathons down, humble brag), but those run clubs seemed a little too intimidating for me, and I could never quite fit them into my London social calendar. The Puresport run club was for the elites. The fittest people in the city. And that made it aspirational. I may not have joined the clubs myself, but I followed them on socials, took photos when my own route happened to cross with theirs, and felt a bit invested in the company.

I never bought a single one of their athlete recovery products, but you can bet I bought their run club merch. A long-sleeve running top, so that I too could signal I was a serious athlete.

I’ve just re-visited their site for this article and their merch section is now hugeee!

Without ever having attended a run, or being anywhere near their core customer, I wanted to wear their brand to say something about who I am.

And that’s why they’re one of the best examples. Puresport built a third space that worked on two audiences at the same time: the hundreds of people inside it, and the thousands of people like me watching from the edge of the Thames path, wishing we were the kind of person who’d go.

So why did it work when so many others didn’t?

The run clubs that launched after Puresport mostly copied the format: a set time, meeting point, and some branded bibs. But very few copied what was actually carrying the community.

It was a routine, not a one-off activation. The Puresport run club was every Wednesday, at the same park, at the same time. People could organise their week around it, and that sense of community could be built week after week. So many brands then offered only one-off run club events and couldn’t compete with that, because you can’t build the same brand affinity or connections from a single event. Attention always has to compound.

It had a point of view about who belonged. The initial Oldenburg definition of a third space is that it’s a “leveller”, somewhere your status doesn’t matter. This is true to an extent, but for a really successful community that your audience can be equally invested in, you need to have a core target member. Enabling you to bring likeminded people together. Puresport’s run club was aspirational, slightly exclusive, and a little bit intimidating. And that’s what made joining it mean something, because it signalled that you were this good-level athlete. Just like a successful business can’t appeal to everyone, a successful community can’t either.

It gave people outside the room a way in. The merch meant the world extended well beyond the people running in the club. You didn’t have to be in the pack to show you belonged to it (or, in my case, to pretend you did). Not only did it turn it into a profitable business model, but it also helped their audience become even more invested by owning a signal of the club.

I am pretty confident that 75% of runners in London in 2022 owned these bright pink socks. And many many others also would never have run a step as part of the Puresport run club.

So what would a third space look like for your brand?

Not every business needs a run club. Actually, please don’t start a run club. I think we’ve finally got to the point where every city has more than enough.

But the businesses that get their third space right tend to have a clear purpose, space, and routine set for their community.

1. What’s the purpose? What do your customers come to you for, beyond the thing you sell?

Most importantly, your third space or community HAS to be relevant to your business. Astrid & Miyu (who I love! All my earrings are from there), recently hosted a run club, but what on earth does jewellery have to do with running? How does that speak to, or relate to, their customer?

The strongest ones are built around the reason people want your product in the first place. In my Brand World framework, I call this The Big Ambition.

Nike customers want to ‘just do it’. They want to get fitter, stronger, and become the best version of themselves. So Nike gives away the Nike Run Club and Nike Training Club apps for free, with guided runs, training plans and programmes you can join at any time, alongside its in-person run clubs and events. None of it requires you to wear Nike, but it makes you feel more affinity for the brand and more likely to buy their items for that event.

Shameless, the Australian pop culture podcast, knows its listeners want to feel in the know and have a proper conversation about the stories everyone else is only skimming. So it launched Shamemore, a paid tier with a monthly members-only episode and access to live show tickets. Listeners pay to get closer to the conversation, and then get to have it in a room together.

2. Where is it? Should it be in person, online, or both?

There’s no hierarchy here. It’s whatever suits the way your customers actually live.

For a local restaurant client of mine, we set up a monthly lock-in. Once a month, we close the restaurant for two hours to everyone except the regulars who’ve signed up, and they get to taste new menu items and drinks we’re trialling developing before anyone else. It’s small, it’s local, and it works because it has regular attendees, so that connection and attention can compound over time.

Conversely, for a national restaurant chain with customers across the country, an in-person evening would have reached only a fraction of them. So instead, for a national chain I’ve worked with, we set up a monthly recipe community: exclusive recipes with a twist on their best-selling menu items so people can recreate them at home, and a group where members swap Korean cooking tips. Same idea, but executed through a very different room.

3. What’s the routine? When are your events?

A third space only becomes a third space when people can expect it. My friend doesn’t go to Uniqlo’s embroidery evening because it’s a nice idea. They go because it’s the same week every month, and it’s in their calendar. Weekly, monthly or quarterly matters far less than whether you can keep it going. If you can’t commit to it for at least six months, I’d rather you didn’t start. Strategy is always a long-term game and this is no different!

This is also where service businesses can do this without a clubhouse or a big budget. A monthly open Q&A, a quarterly dinner for clients, a standing call people know they can drop into. The format can be tiny, as long as the routine is reliable.

Back to the pub

We never did decide what our group should do instead of drinking. (Given it took six months to find one free weekend, I’m not holding my breath.) Perhaps a brand’s third space could be our next answer.

So if your customers stopped meeting at the pub, would they think to come to you?