Marketing can be a nasty business. That’s when we love it the most.

Last month in San Francisco an elementary-school teacher named Arien O’Connell ran the fast time at the Nike Women’s Marathon. But because she didn’t run in the elite group, she wasn’t recognized as the winner. After a few days of embarrassment, Nike retreated and called O’Connell “a winner,” but the damage was done.

Most of it, anyway. Thursday afternoon, representatives of Reebok visited the Children Charter School in Brooklyn. They gave O’Connell free shoes every month for a year, T-shirts for her class and $2,500 to the school. They also gave her a trophy — the F.U.N. Award — recognizing her as the “winner and heroine of non-elite runners everywhere.”

F.U.N. Are we correct about what that stands for, with the N being “Nike”?

“No, but that would be awesome if it did — I didn’t think of that,” Reebok spokesman Jonathan Schecter wrote. “Well played. It’s just spelled like that to accentuate it. It doesn’t stand for anything.”

Mm-hmm, right.