How On Honoured Nicola Spirig With a Career-Defining Sports Campaign
On's 'Nicola's Spirit' is a 2022 Swiss sports campaign built around a short film documenting two-time Olympic medalist Nicola Spirig's attempt to become one of the first women in history to complete a full-distance triathlon in under eight hours, celebrating her career legacy and extraordinary mental fortitude.
Published in Switzerland in June 2022, the campaign centres on a single film asset released by On on June 16, 2022, eleven days after the athletic event it documents. The occasion was the Sub8 project, held on June 5, 2022, at the Dekra Lausitzring racetrack in Germany. Spirig, a seven-time European Champion, crossed the finish line in 7:34:19 — smashing her personal record of 9:14:07 and finishing only three minutes behind Kat Matthews, who completed the course in 7:31:54. Together, the two athletes became the first women in history to break the eight-hour barrier in a full-distance triathlon.
What gives the campaign its particular emotional weight is the biography surrounding the performance. Nicola Spirig was 40 years old at the time of the Sub8 attempt, a mother of three, and had returned from a serious bicycle crash just three months before the race. The film does not treat the event as a simple victory narrative. Instead, it frames the race as the final chapter of one of the most decorated careers in triathlon history — one that includes Olympic gold in London 2012 and Olympic silver in Rio 2016, as documented on the official On platform at Press On-Running. The campaign's stated purpose, as reported by Luxuria Lifestyle on July 20, 2022, is to leave an inspiring legacy for future athletes, not simply to mark a commercial moment. In the context of Swiss sports marketing and athlete storytelling, 'Nicola's Spirit' occupies a rare position: it exists at the intersection of retirement, resilience, and record-breaking, with Switzerland as both its origin and its emotional anchor. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 64 out of 100.
On builds its brand identity around performance authenticity. The decision to centre 'Nicola's Spirit' on Nicola Spirig rather than a younger or more commercially mainstream athlete reflects a deliberate strategic positioning in the Swiss and broader European sports market. Spirig is not simply a recognisable face — she is an institutionally credible figure within triathlon, a sport that demands extreme endurance and commands a loyal, highly engaged participant base.
The Swiss athletic footwear and performance apparel market sits within a broader European landscape shaped by dominant incumbents. Nike held an estimated 22.1% global athletic footwear market share in 2022, according to GlobalData, while Adidas held an estimated 10.9% global share in the same period, also per GlobalData. On, by contrast, occupies a challenger position globally, and its strategy in campaigns like 'Nicola's Spirit' relies not on spending parity with those competitors but on narrative specificity. Rather than sponsoring mass-participation events or celebrity athletes with broad but shallow audience reach, On invests in figures whose credibility within a defined athletic community is near-absolute.
The triathlon segment is particularly fertile ground for this approach. Full-distance triathlon — encompassing a 3.8-kilometre swim, 180-kilometre cycle, and 42.2-kilometre run — attracts participants who self-identify as serious, goal-oriented athletes with high disposable incomes and strong brand loyalty. In Switzerland, where outdoor endurance sport is culturally embedded, the resonance of a campaign featuring the country's most decorated female triathlete is compounded by national pride. The Sub8 project, as an event concept, also carried its own narrative momentum ahead of the campaign's release, generating interest across triathlon media and endurance sports communities internationally. On's alignment with that moment was strategically timed to extract maximum relevance from an event it was directly supporting.
The 'Nicola's Spirit' campaign delivers its message through a single creative asset: a short film. One medium, one subject, one race. The restraint of that choice is itself a creative decision, signalling confidence in the story over spectacle.
The film was published by On on June 16, 2022, as documented on press.on-running.com, and its construction follows the rhythm of athletic documentary filmmaking — building through preparation, philosophy, and personal context before arriving at the event itself. The narrative architecture foregrounds Spirig's interiority: her stated beliefs about determination, the improbability of the feat given her age and recent injury, and the weight of attempting what may be her final professional race. This framing transforms the Sub8 attempt from a time trial into a statement about the nature of sporting legacy.
Feliciano Robayna, Executive Producer and Head of Sports Marketing at On, articulated the creative intent clearly. As reported by Ideahall on June 23, 2022, Robayna stated that Spirig 'has defied the impossible and is the perfect embodiment of how the power of determination can overcome every obstacle towards fulfilling your dreams and ultimate ambition.' As reported by Luxuria Lifestyle on July 20, 2022, he further framed the film's purpose as being about 'the legacy Nicola has left in the sport for future generations to learn from and hopefully follow.' These statements confirm that the film was conceived as a legacy document as much as a brand communication.
Production credits for the 'Nicola's Spirit' campaign beyond Feliciano Robayna's executive producer role are not publicly documented in available trade or production sources. The film's visual language, consistent with On's broader content output, favours naturalistic cinematography and athlete-led voiceover, avoiding the stylised montage conventions common to mass-market sports advertising. In the context of Swiss sports film production, the work reads as deliberate and unshowy — qualities that align with both the brand's aesthetic and the subject's own public persona.
Nicola Spirig completed the Sub8 full-distance triathlon in 7:34:19 on June 5, 2022, a verified athletic result documented across triathlon media. The campaign film documenting that achievement accumulated approximately 865,898 video views, 188 likes, and four comments, as recorded in campaign archive data. These figures, while indicative of meaningful reach for a niche sports film, also point to a limited social engagement rate relative to total views — a structural characteristic common to long-form documentary content distributed without paid amplification.
No independently verified performance data for 'Nicola's Spirit' appears in trade publications including Campaign, Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious. The absence of third-party media coverage in specialist advertising press means the campaign's commercial impact on On's brand metrics in Switzerland or globally cannot be assessed from public sources.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on several durable assets. The athletic event itself is historically verifiable and permanently significant — Nicola Spirig and Kat Matthews remain the first two women to have broken the eight-hour barrier in a full-distance triathlon. That fact gives the film a shelf life well beyond its June 2022 release window. The campaign's alignment with Spirig's retirement also ensures it functions as archival content, likely to resurface each time Spirig's career is discussed in Swiss sports media. For a brand like On, whose identity in Switzerland is built on authentic performance credibility rather than mass-market frequency, those structural qualities may be more valuable than conventional campaign metrics suggest. The Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100 reflects competent execution and a genuinely significant subject, tempered by limited documented trade impact and modest social engagement relative to the scale of the underlying athletic achievement.
On's 'Nicola's Spirit' is a 2022 Swiss sports campaign built around a short film celebrating triathlete Nicola Spirig's Sub8 attempt. Published in June 2022, the film documents Spirig's preparation and philosophy as she became one of the first two women to complete a full-distance triathlon in under eight hours, at age 40.
Nicola Spirig finished the Sub8 full-distance triathlon in 7:34:19 on June 5, 2022. The event took place at Dekra Lausitzring in Germany. Kat Matthews finished in 7:31:54. Both athletes became the first women in history to complete a full-distance triathlon in under eight hours on that date.
Feliciano Robayna served as Executive Producer and Head of Sports Marketing at On for the 'Nicola's Spirit' campaign. Robayna described the film as being about the legacy Spirig leaves for future generations, as reported by Luxuria Lifestyle in July 2022 and Ideahall in June 2022.
On's campaign targets a specialist triathlon audience rather than mass-market consumers. Nike held an estimated 22.1% global athletic footwear share in 2022, per GlobalData, and Adidas held 10.9%. On's strategy relies on narrative credibility over spending scale, using Spirig's verified Swiss Olympic medalist status as its primary brand signal.
The Clapboard Score for 'Nicola's Spirit' is 64 out of 100. The score reflects competent storytelling and a historically significant athletic subject, moderated by limited documented trade press coverage and modest social engagement figures relative to the scale of Nicola Spirig's underlying achievement at the Sub8 triathlon event.
Nicola Spirig returned from a serious bicycle crash just three months before the June 5, 2022 Sub8 event. Despite that injury, the Swiss two-time Olympic medalist completed the full-distance triathlon in 7:34:19, making the achievement a central element of On's 'Nicola's Spirit' campaign narrative in Switzerland.
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