How to Manage Brand Reputation: The Strava Case

About this analysis: we first published it on the Pivony blog in 2022, based on Strava's app reviews from 2021. Pivony has no partnership with Strava or its competitors, and this is an independent reading of public reviews.

Strava and a crowded market

Runners and cyclists, amateurs and professionals alike, love Strava. At the time it reported about 76 million users and was said to add a million a month. The market is crowded: Nike Run Club, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness and Runtastic are backed by Nike, Asics, Under Armour and Adidas, while Strava is not owned by a sports brand. In a market like this, knowing what your users and your competitors' users say matters.

What Strava reviews talk about

Most reviews cover what you'd expect: GPS tracking, segments, membership plans. But in early 2021 a different topic appeared: reviewers reacting to political statements attributed to one of the company's co-founders. Some said they were cancelling their subscription or deleting the app. We could not measure how many people actually left; the number of reviews only gives a rough signal.

The lesson is not about politics. It is that for a consumer brand, what its leaders say outside the product shows up in product reviews. Strava users call themselves "Strava athletes", join clubs and challenges and meet like-minded people through the app. When a brand is part of people's identity, its reputation is personal.

Four opportunities this kind of signal creates for competitors

When users say they are leaving a competitor, the team that notices first has an advantage:

1. Be visible when people look for an alternative. A user who deletes an app starts searching right away. Strong presence in app stores, search and social media matters most at that moment, and switchers are well informed, so lead with your value proposition.
2. Learn from the competitor's mistake. Reviews show how users react to a decision, which is evidence you won't get from theory.
3. Adjust your message. A message that shows the brand welcomes everyone, as sport does, speaks directly to users who felt pushed away.
4. Let your users speak for you. Recommendations from satisfied users, through referrals, challenges and shared activities, persuade switchers better than ads.

The same signal helps the brand itself: if you see an unusual topic rising in your reviews early, you can respond before it turns into churn.

Track your reputation in reviews

• Free review report: paste your App Store or Google Play page into our free review root-cause report. You get the top themes, their likely causes and example reviews by email within one business day.
• Competitor reviews: Pivony Market Intelligence tracks competitor reviews and category trends from app stores, social and public data.
• See also competitor analysis in Pivony.