Les Mills and Motion Sickness are challenging gyms and their members to change their game in a new B2B-turned-B2C campaign that brings to life the music, movement and people behind Les Mills Grit.
Global marketing director of Les Mills Julian Smith describes Grit as a no-frills workout that people are in and out of in 30 minutes and he says it was important that authenticity was captured in the campaign.
He credits Motion Sickness for taking the time to get that brief right and develop a series of videos that gives viewers a taste for the high-intensity workout.
To achieve the slow-motion aesthetic in the clips, Motion Sickness founder and creative director Sam Stuchbury says the agency brought in a specialist crew to help it use a Phantom Flex camera. The rest of the action was shot on an Arri Mini and the combination of both cameras makes it look good enough to run on any channel, Stuchbury says.
The campaign is also supported by a short behind-the-scenes clip that features Les Mills master trainer Corey Baird explaining the co-dependence of science and creativity in developing a Grit class.
These have been used to convince prospective clubs and gyms to adopt the Grit class, according to Smith.
It’s one of three audiences Smith says Les Mills connects with—the second being its global network of instructors who present the Les Mills workouts and the third being customers of the gym. Smith says all three groups love to be inspired by content but the strategy to reach these different groups often varies.
To ensure that the gyms and instructors got the full story of Grit, Motion Sickness served up a longer edit for the business audience, featuring extended explanations from trainers with the aim of motivating them to pick up the programme.
When it came to consumers, the clips were shortened considerably to make them congruent with the type of content that runs across Facebook and Instagram feeds. The aim in this instance is to attract attention rather than interrupt time-poor social media users, Smith explains.
The goal of attracting attention is no easy task when it comes to the exercise scene, which Smith compares to retail on account of the sheer number of players vying against each other to win gym and customer loyalty. In this context, he says Les Mills has taken a concerted effort to invest in creative that allows the brand to stand out on the social media shelf and offer something eye-catching that consumers want to engage with.
With the brand’s Facebook page already attracting over a million fans, it’s an approach that seems to be working so far.
