“I lift things up and put them down”

I have been hearing people talk about this spot for Planet Fitness recently so I just had to sit down and check it out. I also wanted to compare how they treated a fitness spot to what we came up with in class for Lifestyle Family Fitness. After working on the Lifestyle project for so long and doing tons of research, I'm interested in how the professionals work with the same type of problems we encountered and also other ideas that we may never have thought of.

So I thought the spot was funny but I expected more by the way everyone was talking about it. It's making fun of the “meatheads” that are typically in the gym, lifting weights and grunting. It shows them as being stupid which is funny because we all like to laugh at stupid people. Planet Fitness is obviously saying that it's not made for this kind of person. It advertises as being your planet, not his. This is supposed to make people feel more comfortable in the gym and not intimidated by the meatheads. Makes sense. However..

This may be a hilarious spot attracting a youthful, fun audience but I think the ideas that we came up with in class for Lifestyle were stronger concepts. We were faced with the similar problem, trying to attract the average person, not meatheads. Instead of making fun of a meathead and kicking him out of the gym, we showed everyday friendly people in our spot. That doesn't mean our spots were boring, in fact I think they were hilarious. We focused on what gets people into the gym. To make the idea humorous, we put these everyday people in extreme situations, such as being chased by a bear while camping with your family. I think this is a more tasteful way to reach the audience.

Another thing I thought about was the difference between Lifestyle and Planet Fitness. I feel that Planet Fitness is trying to reach a younger crowd while Lifestyle is reaching out to a fairly young crowd but also families. This could change the whole tone of the campaign which would make more sense. I guess what interests me is the way the class had a very similar project but went an entirely different way with it. I'm also impressed with the work everyone did in the class. I think it's just as good as the “I lift things up and put them down” spot which was rated “The ad of the week” on adweek.