The Business Behind the Best Activation at UTMB (And Beyond)

Hilary Fenet just pulled off one of the most talked-about brand activations at UTMB — a full hotel takeover in Chamonix for Rabbit, complete with a clubhouse for the week, community breakfasts, and an espresso cart in the parking lot. But the company behind it, Halo, started with a much smaller and much less glamorous moment: Hilary booking a hotel on the wrong side of a mountain before a race in the Italian Dolomites.

In this conversation, Hilary walks through how a bad hotel booking turned into a genuine business insight — brands were building incredible experiences for their sponsored athletes, but ignoring the people actually buying their gear. She breaks down how Halo builds these activations from the ground up, the data that makes the case for in-person experience over pure digital marketing, and what it actually takes to scale something this bespoke to multiple events happening around the world at once.

Second Nature is proudly supported by Halo and Popfly: