[Abstract] With the rapid development of China's economy and society and the surging public demand for fitness and leisure, marathon events in China are booming and have entered the stage of industrialization. As a sports event industry, the marathon industry is of great significance in boosting economic and social development and creating new city name cards. At present, China's marathon industry has an increasingly solid foundation and gradually improved forms, with constantly improving social participation and market recognition. Meanwhile, it also faces problems like insufficient total supply, untapped market potential, uneven operational capabilities, and industrial system to be further improved and perfected.

The year 2018 marked a turning point for China's city marathons transitioning from quantitative to qualitative development. On the basis of resolving existing problems, fully exploring marathon events' brand value, building core competitiveness, accumulating event brand assets have become the top priority for sustainable development of city marathons. Taking Shanghai Marathon as a case study, based on basic theories of communication, marketing and brand management, combining theory with practice, starting from the brand growth of Shanghai Marathon, benchmarking the principles of building top international event brands, focusing on current problems of Shanghai Marathon brand building and its initially formed brand personality, using Laswell's 5W model to analyze the communication mechanism of the Shanghai Marathon brand, with emphasis on three aspects - brand positioning, brand marketing, brand maintenance and enhancement, it formulated the brand enhancement path for Shanghai Marathon in the "full marathon era", and eventually translated into main problems and enhancement countermeasures of city marathon event brand building in China.