The winter solstice has heralded a new chapter in the advertising campaign for Equinox Fitness, the worlds largest luxury fitness club chain. As reported in Advertising Age, [1] here’s a video synopsis of the creative, which actually works best in the print medium and/or single image format:
Equinox used world-renowned British photographer Rankin and it is a very well-executed campaign. It’s also exactly what mid-range fashion brand Benneton did in the 1980s and for about 20 years following. Their world-renowned Italian photographer was Olivero Toscani, the campaign slogan was “The United Colors of Benetton” and they created a host of (then) very controversial image-based ads covering world topics including:
- AIDS
- starvation and other graphic forms of real human suffering
- Gulf War casualties
- abortion
- interracial couples
- gay couples (transgendering wasn’t part of the group then)
In keeping with the times, Equinox has introduced a reality-TV feel to their campaign. Their timing may be particularly precognitive on the transgendering topic—it appears Bruce Jenner will have some very big and related news for us this year. [2] I’ll admit that I’m not hip enough to understand what the pig wrangling thing is about (and it can’t be what I’m thinking).
I’ve worked in the fitness club segment for a long time, so I understand that the motivation for joining a club is wrapped up deep in a person’s self-image and their emotional need to change it. But still, Equinox is a long way beyond that thinking with this evolution of their campaign.
Equinox’s long-time slogan, until this campaign, was, “It’s not fitness, it’s life.” I’d argue the job here is get people to join a beautiful and expensive fitness club, and someone lost the plot here. This is creative unchained from logical strategy and that rarely gets you the results you want.
- Ad Age, “Equinox Gets Audacious in Ads From W&K”, Jan 6, 2015.
- hollywoodlife.com, “Bruce Jenner Plans To Publicly Reveal He’s Becoming A Woman In 2015”, Dec 17, 2014.
