Celebrity Name: Cynthia Erivo
Brand Name: Brooks Running
Deal Type: Global Brand Ambassador
Announced: Early April 2026
Impact: Positions Erivo as a multi‑hyphenate face of high‑performance running while helping Brooks elevate from category challenger to global lifestyle‑performance leader through authentic, runner‑first celebrity storytelling
- “Shine Under Pressure Marketing Dive” is Brooks Running’s newest global campaign, starring Wicked and Dracula actress Cynthia Erivo, built around her training journey for the 2026 London Marathon.
- Erivo has been a genuine Brooks wearer for years. The brand’s sales team had quietly connected with her several years ago, making this a long-in-the-making partnership.
- Brooks CMO Melanie Allen describes the Erivo deal as the brand’s first major push into the EMEA market, signaling a clear shift from its U.S.-centric celebrity strategy toward a truly global one.
- The deal extends beyond race day. Brooks has announced limited-edition Erivo-inspired merchandise for later in 2026, plus further storytelling tied to the autumn marathon season.
Cynthia Erivo, the Emmy, Tony, and Grammy Award-winning actress behind Wicked and currently starring in a West End one-woman production of Dracula at London’s Noël Coward Theatre, has officially partnered with Brooks Running for a sweeping new global campaign titled “Shine Under Pressure.”
The campaign follows Erivo as she trains for the 2026 London Marathon, building toward a personal-best 3:15 finish, while writing a poetic love letter to the sport.
Erivo has worn Brooks footwear for years, having set a personal best of 3:35:36 at the 2022 London Marathon during peak Wicked rehearsals. Her training coach for this year’s race is Erika Kemp, a Brooks-sponsored professional marathoner brought in as part of the deal.
The creative, produced by Brooks Running Creative Lab and MBooth, takes a diaristic approach, drawing from Erivo’s own training journals, with her words shaping the campaign narrative through video ads, social content, and an appearance on the Brooks-sponsored “Nobody Asked Us” podcast during London Marathon weekend.
Beyond Erivo, Brooks Running has recently partnered with celebrities including Jeremy Renner for its “Let’s Run There” campaign, which highlights his return to running after his near‑fatal snowplow accident, and actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, whose partnership with the brand kicked off in 2025.
For Erivo, this adds to a portfolio of high-profile brand deals. She has previously partnered with Google Pixel, Louis Vuitton, as well as Listerine. She also served as OPI’s Global Brand Ambassador, tied to the OPI x Wicked collection launching in October 2024.
On the music front, Erivo won a Grammy in 2026 for “Defying Gravity” in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category with Ariana Grande, and released her second studio album, I Forgive You, in June 2025.
This kind of authentic, performance-driven celebrity storytelling is part of a pattern gaining momentum across the industry, similar to how Misty Copeland and Lana Condor starred in the Thorne Women’s Health campaign and Ana de Armas and Ouyang Nana fronted a major Louis Vuitton campaign, both brands leveraging multi-hyphenate talent with genuine personal connections to the product.
Brooks CMO Melanie Allen noted the Erivo partnership also marks the brand’s first major opportunity to tap into the EMEA market, with limited-edition merchandise inspired by Erivo and further brand storytelling planned for the fall marathon season.
Takeaways
This partnership is more than a celebrity endorsement, it’s a strategic pivot. Brooks has always been the runner’s brand, beloved in specialty circles, but “Shine Under Pressure” is a clear signal that it’s ready to play on a bigger global stage.
Choosing Erivo, a British-Nigerian performer with crossover appeal across arts, fashion, and athletics, is a calculated move to crack the EMEA market while simultaneously chasing a younger, more diverse consumer base.
The fact that she’s been wearing Brooks for years isn’t just a nice PR talking point; it’s the foundation of a campaign rooted in credibility at a time when audiences are increasingly skeptical of hollow endorsements.
For Brooks, this also reflects a broader brand evolution, from a company known more for its Ghost and Glycerin shoe lines than its name, to one investing seriously in upper-funnel storytelling.
Can Brooks convert Erivo’s loyal arts-and-culture fanbase into long-term running gear customers or does the crossover only go so far? With this being Brooks’ first EMEA-facing celebrity campaign, does this signal plans for more international signings, or is Erivo a one-off experiment?
