Running has stopped being a solo discipline. Hospodářské noviny described run clubs under the hashtag #RunClubGeneration as a way for Gen Z to build friendships and relationships. According to a survey the article cites, run clubs are four times more popular than bars as a place where young people meet, and more than half of people found new friends through sport. Strava adds in its annual report that participation in group runs grew by almost 60% globally over the year.
For a brand director, this is an uncomfortable picture. The generation into which the largest marketing budgets flow is building its strongest experiences of community in places where no brand is present. And when you ask them directly, they confirm it. Fewer than 30% of Gen Z think brands understand them, according to the Gen Z Pulse 2026 study, which the consultancy division Ogilvy Consulting produced with research platform Ideally on a sample of 2,100 respondents in the US, the UK and Australia.
Four tensions
The study rejects the reading that Gen Z is contradictory. Reid Litman, director at Ogilvy Consulting, sums it up: “Gen Z isn't contradictory. They're responding to a version of adulthood that asks them to manage more parts of life, with fewer default systems than any generation before them.” Instead of contradictions, the study describes four tensions between which young people switch every day.
On energy, according to the report, 76% actively manage their energy, and 60% feel stressed or anxious most of the time. On trust, the picture of institutions is bleak: fewer than one in six trust national news, the president or large technology companies. A fragmented network of influence, in which young people choose for themselves whom to trust, takes the place of authority. They want input from the people around them but keep the final say, which 40% cite as a condition. On identity, only 17% feel deeply connected to even a single community, and fewer than a fifth say belonging comes naturally. And on presence, only 6% are satisfied with their offline social life, while 52% want more of it, ahead of travel, entertainment and career.
Half want brands to help build community
The data also suggests a way forward. Half of Gen Z, according to the study, want to build community actively and together with brands.
Alexandra Manderstam, brand consultant and co-founder of CULTISH, reads exactly this from the study, and shared it on LinkedIn. She has over 200,000 followers, so she is both a creator and a translator of data for brands. “Gen Z isn't hard to read,” she writes. “They're highly deliberate, navigating competing needs, and making trade-offs earlier and more intentionally than any previous generations.” On the last tension, she names the route brands should take. “The brands that create genuine in-person moments, built around connection and shared memory rather than content capture, are filling a gap that digital cannot close.”
A test at a running club
Running clubs are a practical test of this finding. They are communities built on regular personal meetings, trust and a shared experience, which is exactly what the study identifies as Gen Z's greatest unmet need. A brand that occupies such a space with just its logo on a banner will not reach Gen Z. But if it helps create the space and gives the community its own voice, it gets in.
The logic is the same as with creators. A generation that does not trust institutions or advertising trusts people and groups it shares time and values with. A brand that earns that trust holds a distribution that cannot be bought with a media budget.
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