Strava Brand Voice Refresh
When Strava saw an opportunity to go mass market, a new brand voice helped make it happen. This project built a fresh tone of voice with broader appeal, and internal writers, agencies, and freelancers now use the guidelines across all comms. I was the lead internal writer on Strava’s new verbal identity and worked on the channel style guides that put it to use. I now review other writers’ work against the guidelines.
Year: 2025
Role: Lead copywriter
With: Nimble Brand Studio, Khoi Phan (ECD), Anton Schulz (ACD), Sofia Morales (brand marketing)
The brand narrative
“Power in Numbers” is a play on words: the literal numbers behind every activity, and the strength of a community. Data and community are what make Strava unlike anything else, and the narrative ties them together with a singular idea. This work came out of a close partnership with our agency, Nimble Brand Studio, and now anchors a new era for Strava.
The brand persona
Strava needed a voice the community could look up to. A peer is too much like everyone else, and a coach stands on the sidelines and no longer does the thing. The Team Captain sits between them: a leader who’s still on the team, still putting in the work, and still the first to crack a joke. That balance gives Strava the authority to lead and the warmth to bring everyone along. Our early inspiration was the 2019 US Women’s National Team, which played to win, backed each other up, and had fun doing it.
The voice attributes
We built the voice in two layers. Kinetic and motivating are the base, the everyday language that keeps people moving. Witty and self-assured sit on top, the personality that makes Strava sound like nobody else in the fitness industry.
The tone spectrum
The voice is always Strava, but the tone moves with the moment. A failed payment email needs to be clear and calm, and a meme on social can be as playful as we like. We mapped the tone on a spectrum from functional to expressive, so every writer knows how far to turn it up or down.
