New Balance Brand Activation for Berlin Marathon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whzD1qw9gAo

I had the honour of designing and producing a customisation workshop experience for New Balance’s four-day brand activation for the Berlin Marathon 2025, held in the heart of Berlin at Kranzler Eck.

The idea was to create a hands-on, playful, and stylish experience where guests could customise their running gear and actually wear it during the marathon. The garments were provided by New Balance, and I was brought in to design the creative layer: the materials, the tools, the flow, and the overall workshop experience.

Customisation Concept & Heat-Press Elements

The experience consisted in using elements that aligned with New Balance branding and the Marathon purpose. So I chose to use heat presses to apply these elements:

• Reflective tapes in different textures and widths.

• Rhinestones in New Balance brand colours: black, red, and silver.

• Custom-branded vinyls featuring slogans, numbers, letters, and marathon-related phrases, in black, white, and reflective silver.

Day 1: Customisation Workshops at Makers Space

We run x3 90-minute workshops, with 30 slots on each one, booked out in minutes. To spark creativity, I produced several finished samples so that participants could get inspired, an essential part of my creative workshops. Then they would:

• Experiment with reflective and decorative elements.

• Alter the garment shape by cropping, opening the back, or removing sleeves.

• Cut and hem using double-sided tape—no sewing required.

Days 2–4: Open Table Customisation & Bracelet-Making Station

Following the workshops, the activation transitioned into an open-format experience across the remaining days.

Guests could:

• Customise cotton merch T-shirts using the same curated materials.

• Create friendship bracelets at a dedicated table using black, silver, and red beads.

• Create Knot bracelets with cords and reflective threads.

Successful Interactive Experience

The response exceeded anything I had anticipated. The space was consistently busy, guests were genuinely excited to customise, and the atmosphere felt collaborative, joyful, and premium.

It was such an honour to be part of such a high-end production and to collaborate with the incredible team at Exposure London.

Custom Designed Experiences for Brand Activations

This workshop experience was custom-designed specifically for New Balance’s Berlin Marathon event, but the concept is totally adaptable and can be reworked for other brand events, campaigns, and live experiences.

I design and produce live customisation workshops, brand activation experiences, and interactive creative formats for fashion, sports, and lifestyle brands—often within large-scale events, pop-ups, and campaign moments. Each format is tailored to the brand identity, messaging, audience, and the context in which the experience takes place.

Get a quote for your event here.

With love,

Josefina

Photos and Video by Nicole Fiser