After winning the 2025 New York City Marathon and setting a course record in a pair of On sneakers, champion runner Hellen Obiri is starring in the Swiss sportwear brand’s newest campaign.
The new spot, dubbed “Race for the Feeling,” is the first expression of On’s new “Run On Clouds” brand platform that was unveiled last month, and “signals a shift away” from performance storytelling rooted only in metrics, towards one centered around human feeling.
Directed by Parker Schmidt, with still photography by Joanna Wzorek, the campaign follows Obiri during her daily training routes in Boulder, Colo at the On Athletics Club (OAC). The company noted that the visuals aim to “invoke a deeply personal connection to one of the marathon racing’s most accomplished athletes.”
The decision to frame the campaign around “fast as a feeling” was inspired by Obiri herself, whose response when asked whether she looked at her watch to see how fast she was going while breaking the course record in New York City in November, was simply: “No, I just felt it.”
Obiri completed the 2025 New York City Marathon in November with a time of 2:19:51, besting Margaret Okayo’s previous record of 2:22:31, which was set in 2003. Obiri had previously won the 2023 NYC Marathon — as well as the 2024 and 2023 Boston Marathons — and finished second in the 2024 New York race. Her record-setting win was completed in the On Cloudboom Strike, the same experimental super shoe worn by the runner for her 2024 Boston win.
Hellen Obiri stars in On’s new campaign.
Courtesy of On
Laura Bevan, head of brand for running at On, said in a statement that the running category, particularly at the elite end, is typically marketed through the lens of data, specs and split times, and this campaign was created to show another angle.
“The campaign explores the emotive side of performance, capturing that euphoric sensory experience of fast when you’re racing at your limit,” Bevan noted. “As an early expression of our new ‘Run On Clouds’ platform, it reflects a broader creative direction for On: one that gets us back to the human experience of running, as much as the performance behind it.”
Mico Toledo, head of creative for performance at On, added that every creative decision – from Obiri’s voiceover and the soundtrack to the cinematography and production design – was made to immerse people in “the feeling of fast.”
“Our ambition was to create something that feels as visceral and instinctive as racing itself, drawing viewers into Hellen’s experience and translating the emotional intensity of elite performance into a story that resonates with every runner,” Toledo said.
Hellen Obiri stars in On’s new campaign.
Courtesy of On
In June, the company showcased its new “Run On Clouds” brand platform during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. The new strategy aims to “cut through an increasingly crowded running market flooded with product launches” and focuses on “simplification and transparency.”
The first example of this new push coincided with the reveal of the new Cloudboom Strike 2 and the LightSpray Cloudboom Strike 2 super shoes, which are now available globally.
