ernest
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Ads get skipped,
communities don't.

Ernest is the first IRL community
marketing partner for consumer brands.
Send us your brief, we come back
with the communities that fit
and the activation to run.

Get started
Now live in France
10K+ communities across 50 cities
Proprietary IRL community data
WOMEN CYCLING CLUB · NICE
FOUNDERS MEETUP · LYON
RUNNING CLUB · PARIS
OUTDOOR FITNESS CLUB · BORDEAUX
PADEL CLUB · TOULOUSE
DEBATE CLUB · PARIS
BOOK CLUB · LILLE
LONGEVITY & WELLNESS CLUB · MARSEILLE
WOMEN CYCLING CLUB · NICE
FOUNDERS MEETUP · LYON
RUNNING CLUB · PARIS
OUTDOOR FITNESS CLUB · BORDEAUX
PADEL CLUB · TOULOUSE
DEBATE CLUB · PARIS
BOOK CLUB · LILLE
LONGEVITY & WELLNESS CLUB · MARSEILLE

How ernest works

01Discover

Filter communities by values, location, themes, member intent, and profiles. Understand who your people are, which tribes they belong to, and whether your brand has a place among them.

Typology SPF Summer 26
Typology
New SPF for Summer 26
Clean · 11 ingredients
SPF 50+ · Mineral
Dermatologist tested

"She reads every ingredient list, does pilates, shops at the bio market on sundays. She's exactly who this SPF was made for."

Values

PerformanceAuthenticityImpactExclusivityCreativityInnovation

02Activate

Choose your format: gifting, event sponsorship, ambassador programs, or branded content. Brief the community leaders, coordinate logistics, and run campaigns from one workspace.

Activation formats

Gift

Product seeding

Sponsor

Event sponsorship

Reward

Ambassador programs

Amplify

Branded content

Campaign

Summer SPF Launch

Active3 activations
ParenthèseSeaside yoga retreat
Les FondatricesClean beauty edit
Bien CommunIngredient masterclass

03Measure

Track sentiment, purchase intent, and attributed conversions per activation. Benchmark community spend against paid and influencer channels. Make community a measurable growth channel.

Genuine Interest Rate

78%

Organic Reach14.2K
Word of Mouth3,400
Purchase Intent67%
Outperformed

Your activation outperformed 92% of activations in clean beauty.

See How →

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The shift

Brands showing up in communities win.

Traditional marketing

Getting more expensive, working less.

+60%

In paid social ad costs over the last 5 years — HubSpot

-65%

In influencer engagement rates since 2022 — Sprout Social

→ Community marketing

Already trusted. No bidding.

89%

Of consumers trust peer recommendations over ads — Nielsen

#1

Word-of-mouth is the top driver of purchase decisions — McKinsey

Activation types

Turn offline communities into a powerful growth channel.

Seed

Place your product where your customers already gather, at their run club, supper club, or weekend meetup. Real hands-on trial beats another ad they'll scroll past.

Product SeedingProduct Testing & Panelling

Sponsor

Show up at the events your customers already care about, in person. Fund the bar, the retreat, or the afterparty, and become part of the memory.

Event SponsorshipAmbassador Program

Reward

Give members who match your audience a reason to pick you first: early drops, discounts, VIP access. Turn your best fans into affiliates who spread the word.

Affiliate Program

Amplify

Every offline activation creates content most brands leave on the table. Repurpose it into branded posts and community spotlights that keep reaching your audience.

UGCBranded Content
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For brands looking to work with communities

The best brands of 2026 show up where it matters most: the Sunday run club, the early morning surf crew, the supper club. Join ernest and make belonging and connection your edge.

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Frequently asked questions

Is ernest a platform, an agency, or a marketplace?

Think of ernest as your end-to-end operating system for community marketing. Brief our team and we run the activation with you. You gain access to the app: discover communities, track every activation, see what's working.

Kithe is our community marketplace, where communities log in, create a profile, and make themselves discoverable to brands looking to partner with them.

Both sides work together as one unified system.

How is IRL community marketing different from influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing puts your brand in front of an audience through one person's reach. Community marketing puts your brand inside a tribe, a group of people who already share values, rituals, and trust. The difference isn't just the channel, it is the depth and precision of the activations.

Can't I just reach out to communities manually?

You can, but finding the right ones, briefing them, coordinating logistics, and getting data back takes weeks per campaign. That is the part we take off your hands: we source the communities, handle the briefing and the logistics, and come back with the results. You follow all of it in the app.

What does "IRL community activation" mean concretely?

It can be product gifting to a running club, sponsoring a ceramics studio event, partnering with a supper club as an ambassador program, or funding branded content for a book club.

What communities are on ernest?

Sweat clubs, smart clubs, hospitality clubs, fandom clubs: running crews, book clubs, supper clubs, cycling collectives, gaming communities and more, across France and growing.

What kind of brands use ernest?

Brands looking for new visibility opportunities beyond ads and influencers, especially consumer brands in beauty, wellness, food & beverage, sport, and fashion.