09/02/2026
You guys, it's almost 2027. 😳
By January, many of the marketing decisions and budgets that determine success have already been made. I have some ideas about the advertising and sponsorship reality.
The strongest athletes, creators, properties, and activation opportunities are beginning to attract commitments. UGC is on 🔥 right now. Have you jumped in that saddle yet?
Before anyone starts choosing riders or writing checks. Your brand needs to know:
• What you are actually trying to accomplish in the equestrian market
• Which disciplines, audiences, and buying habits matter to that goal
• Whether an athlete’s audience, reputation, content ability, and competitive calendar make them useful to the brand
• What the partnership will create beyond logo placement and occasional tagged posts
• How sponsorship content will connect to retail, ecommerce, email, paid media, events, dealers, and customer acquisition
• What the brand needs permission to use, where it can use it, and for how long
• What success will look like before the first product box ships
• Whether the internal team has enough time to create assets, approve campaigns, coordinate appearances, build landing pages, brief partners, and establish tracking
Planning early protects brands from spending next year’s money on a collection of disconnected equestrian activities that look active but produce very little.