> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The ticker updates once a week - URL: https://giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io/the-ticker-updates-once-a-week/ - Published: 2026-09-30T14:18:41.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-30T14:18:41.000Z - Description: Hoka put New York's own Strava mileage on screens in Times Square all September, and everybody called it live data. Marketing Dive says the boards refresh weekly. That one word is the difference between a project you can't afford and a whiteboard you can start Friday. - Author: giovanni gallucci - Tags: Organic Social, Brand Positioning, Consumer Trends, Social Platforms *Listen to this episode of The Daily Trends Report, then use the piece below.* A running brand bought screens in Times Square this month and put somebody else's numbers on them. [Hoka](https://www.linkedin.com/company/hoka/?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io) has spent September running a challenge called Run Your City on [Strava](https://www.strava.com/?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io), pitting New York's five boroughs against each other to see which one logs the most miles. The totals go up on digital screens in Times Square, Tribeca, SoHo and Williamsburg as ticker-style creative cycling through miles logged, pace and a few other stats. [Marketing Dive reported the build on September 3](https://www.marketingdive.com/news/hoka-builds-strava-running-stats-into-digital-ooh-campaign/829480/?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io). [Digiday went behind it yesterday](https://www.modernretail.co/marketing/behind-hokas-bid-to-own-the-nyc-marathons-run-up-period/?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io) with the people who made it. Allie Tsavdarides, who runs North America marketing at Hoka, told Digiday the point was to spend the space on something other than the shoe. Her words: "Instead of this being a Hoka advertisement, we really wanted to use that space to talk about our community, talk about our runners and celebrate the progress." Michael Walsh Kirwan, creative director at [Jellyfish](https://www.jellyfish.com/?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io), the agency that built it, said runners would "see literal change reflected back to them." The challenge closes today. There's a block party Saturday, October 3, at McCarren Parkhouse. The New York City Marathon is November 2. That's the news. Here's the part that matters if what you have is a shelf, a phone and no media budget. ## The ticker updates once a week Almost everybody describing this campaign has called it live data, including the briefing I recorded this morning. It isn't live. Marketing Dive's report is specific: the screens display weekly updates. The creative is ticker-inspired, which is a phrase doing a lot of quiet work. The design makes you feel a feed. The refresh is once a week. I want to sit on that for a second, because the word live is exactly what stops an operator from copying this. Live means a data partner. Live means an integration, a contract, somebody in engineering, a quarter of scoping. Weekly means a person with a number and a Friday. Strip the campaign down to what actually moved. A brand found a number its community was already keeping about itself, refreshed it once a week, and displayed it in public. Everything else is spend. The screens are nice. Times Square is expensive. The mechanic underneath costs nothing, and it is the only part you need. ## The media ran before the content existed Read Digiday's line about the block party again. The party "will in turn become the subject of its messaging in the weeks after." So the September screens weren't the output of this campaign. They were the input. Hoka bought attention in September to build a crowd on October 3, and that crowd is the footage that runs through October and into marathon week. That's backwards from how most of us work. Normally you make the asset, then you buy media against the asset. This bought media to manufacture the asset. You don't need the buy to run that play. You need a reason for people to show up somewhere on a date, and a count is a reason. ## Why a count beats a content calendar Most calendars die in March, and they die for the same reason every time. They assume every week has news in it. Most weeks don't, so you start manufacturing news, and manufacturing news is exhausting in a way that nobody admits out loud until the third month. A count doesn't need news. It needs Friday. A coffee roaster posts the week's roast board. Bags by origin, out the door, which part of town ordered what. That's a scoreboard of a town's taste, and people check it to find themselves in it. A hot sauce brand runs the heat ladder and posts who moved up a tier this month. Now the community is keeping score on itself with your product as the ruler, and you didn't write a word of copy to make it happen. Two failure modes, and both are common. The first is picking a number nobody was tracking before you showed up. If you have to teach people to care about the count, you've invented a metric, and nobody in the history of the world has watched a metric. The second is making the board about you. The minute it says more about the brand than about the people on it, it's a billboard again, and people clock that instantly. Resist the prize, too. The second there's a winner, people game the count and the number stops being true. Being on the board is the reward. That's enough for more people than you'd guess. ## Three things you can run this week **1\. The post, pasteable today.** Announce the count, not the campaign. > Starting this Friday we're posting the board. > > Every Friday: how many bags went out, by origin, and which neighborhood ordered what. That's it. No contest, no prize, no code. > > You're already keeping track of your own bag. We're just going to put the town's number where everybody can see it. > > First board goes up Friday. Three rules under it. Name the day and then never miss the day. Use real names when you have permission, because reach follows names and people share the post they're standing in. Attach no discount, because a discount turns a community count into a coupon drop and the number stops meaning anything. **2\. The still.** Shoot the board itself, in the room where the work happens. An actual whiteboard by the register, hand-written, with this week's numbers on it and last week's still ghosted underneath where you wiped it. Eye level, phone, available light, your own handwriting in frame. Leave the mess in. Do not build a graphic, do not clean the counter, and do not shoot it in a nicer room than the one you work in. The smudge is the proof it's real. **3\. The video, 15 to 30 seconds, five shots, shoot it the same day.** - Shot 1, 3 seconds: your hand wiping last week's numbers off the board. - Shot 2, 5 seconds: you writing this week's number, said out loud with the full product or shop name as you write it. - Shot 3, 6 seconds: one wide of the room, whatever is actually happening in it, machine running or boxes stacked or nobody there yet. - Shot 4, 8 seconds: the one detail behind the number. The origin bag, the pepper crate, the jar that moved most. Name it. - Shot 5, 4 seconds: back on the board, full, and you say the day out loud. "New board every Friday." No burned-in captions. No music you have to argue about. Say the full product name in the first five seconds and again at the end, because search is the one route nobody can price you out of. Free internal move, and it takes twenty minutes: open whatever system you already run and list every number you keep that your customers also keep about themselves. Bags, jars, miles, visits, heat level, pickup orders, the reorder. Cross off every one that needs a sentence of explanation. Whatever survives that cut is your Friday. The screens in Times Square are a budget decision. The number is a strategy decision, and you can make it before lunch. ## The show This piece extends today's episode of The Daily Trends Report, where Alexis Parker and I worked through this alongside a LinkedIn creator discovery test and California's non-ultraprocessed seal fight. Subscribe on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-trends-report/id1896763846?i=1000785549310&ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io) or [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/033jcZwbZNGKpeUTRJvt1J?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io). The show is the briefing. The article is the extension. The post is what you do with it. Go find your number, pick the day, and put it on a wall this week. If you'd rather have somebody run the whole system for you, strategy, the content and the community management together, [message me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/galluccinet?ref=giovanni-gallucci.ghost.io).