Some projects are measured by results. Others, beyond the results, give us the opportunity to feel that we are becoming part of something truly special.
Leiria Running Club is one of them.
From its very first editions, the Mr Urbina team has been at the forefront of the project’s IBEM management, supporting an initiative built around a clear purpose: bringing people together through movement, promoting health and well-being, creating community, and contributing to the city of Leiria.
The first run, held on July 12, 2026, quickly confirmed that there was something different here. People with different levels of experience shared the same kilometres, supported one another, and began building a community around sport.
By the second edition, held on August 9, that energy had already evolved into something bigger. Running, walking, music, interaction, and a growing community came together around an experience that was beginning to establish its own place within the city.
For us, being part of that process has meant much more than simply communicating an event.
IBEM Before, During and After Every Edition
Our involvement begins long before runners reach the starting line.
Through IBEM, we have supported Leiria Running Club with strategy, communication, creative direction, content production, and direct support for the promotion and mobilisation surrounding its first editions.
Each event requires different elements to work together as one experience. Digital presence, content, registrations, communication, coverage, technology, and the ability to react in real time all need to operate in coordination.
This is precisely where our way of working takes on another dimension.
During each event, part of our creative team works directly on location, carrying out photographic and audiovisual coverage while the experience is still unfolding.
The material is continuously transferred to our creative laboratory, where it is selected, edited, processed, and prepared almost in real time for delivery across social media.
The result is communication that does not wait for the event to end before telling its story.
Creativity moves at the same pace as the experience itself.
When a Need Becomes Technology
Our work with Leiria Running Club has also given us the opportunity to bring our technological capabilities directly into the operation.
Faced with the need for a more efficient way to manage registrations, we deployed MRunning, our own custom-developed plugin created specifically for the project.
MRunning processes registrations and organises the flow of participant information associated with each event, transforming the website from a communication channel into an operational tool capable of supporting the club’s continued growth.
For Mr Urbina, this development represents our vision of IBEM particularly well.
When a need cannot be solved in the way we believe it should be, we look for a solution. And when that solution does not exist, we have the capability to build it.
Strategy, creativity, communication, and technology stop operating as isolated areas and begin working around the same objective.
A Community That Feels Different
It would be impossible, however, to describe our experience with Leiria Running Club purely from a professional perspective.
There is something that metrics cannot fully explain.
It is the atmosphere.
Sharing each edition with outstanding professionals, runners, families, collaborators, brands, and people who simply want to be part of a community has allowed us to experience the project from within.
What began as an event centred around running and walking is progressively becoming a space for connection, belonging, and engagement with the city.
Sport opens the door, but people ultimately build the experience.
For a creative team, having the opportunity to work surrounded by that energy is a privilege.
Portugal Opened Its Doors to Our Creativity
Mr Urbina was born as a brand in 2006 and formally established as a company in 2008. After years of developing projects, building brands, and putting our creativity to work across different markets, we now have the opportunity to write a new chapter of our story from Portugal.
That is why our involvement with Leiria Running Club carries a particularly special meaning for us.
It is an honour to see Portugal open its doors to our creativity, our ideas, and our way of working.
More importantly, we are grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate what our team is capable of.
Not only through a campaign or a graphic piece, but by being there.
Planning. Developing technology. Photographing. Producing. Editing. Communicating. Solving problems. Supporting the operation.
Working as one team.
The Trust That Makes Our Work Possible
None of this journey would have been possible without the trust of those who opened the doors and allowed our ideas and capabilities to become part of the project.
We would like to extend our special thanks to the management of the distinguished CafeCaphe, whose recommendation led to our involvement with this project. For us, being recommended by a company that knows our work represents an invaluable expression of trust.
We are equally grateful to the management of Grupo Xplose for welcoming the Mr Urbina team, believing in our capabilities, and giving us the confidence and autonomy to move fluidly throughout the entire structure of the project.
That trust has allowed us to work exactly as we believe IBEM should work: close to the people, understanding needs from within, making decisions with agility, and bringing our creative, strategic, operational, and technological capabilities together around a shared objective.
The freedom to create, propose, execute, and solve also comes with responsibility.
It is a responsibility we embrace with commitment and gratitude.
We Keep Running Together
Every new edition is another opportunity to improve what we built in the one before it.
Because IBEM is not simply about being present.
It is about supporting, learning, measuring, optimising, and coming back stronger.
Leiria Running Club is building a community.
We have the privilege of running alongside it.
Leiria Running Club × Mr Urbina
Leiria, Portugal
#LeadingWithCreativity
