Vol 41. Equinox: No quitters allowed 💪

You’ve probably heard or seen the stereotypes of people flocking to the gym after New Year’s, only to abandon the activity months later. 

It’s actually got a lot of truth behind it. According to the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, 12% of all gym memberships start in January. But within the first five months, nearly 80% of those folks who signed up have thrown in the towel (but still have their membership). 

This is typically good for gyms since many of their traditional business models rely on folks to sign up and not actually show up. But that model is shifting, especially when it comes to boutique gyms.  

This week, Case Studied explores how Equinox had its best sign-up month ever by forbidding people to sign up on Jan. 1 

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The Brief:

Equinox is a luxury fitness brand with 108 clubs worldwide. It’s known for mini-fridges stacked with eucalyptus-infused towels and for launching a gym membership that costs $40k per year. Standard membership prices vary by location, but the general average is between $200 and $405 per month. 

The Equinox slogan is, “It’s not fitness. It’s life.” Standing behind the idea of that slogan, they launched a bold marketing campaign about the most important time of year for gyms—January. 

Like we mentioned, the stats year-over-year show that the majority of people who sign up for gyms in January stop going within a few weeks or months. With that in mind, Equinox wanted to make it clear that they want members who are committed to long-term health and wellness and not a quick, temporary stent.

The Execution:

Equinox partnered with the agency COLLINS to execute the “We don’t speak January” campaign. The idea was simple and bold—Equinox forbade people from starting new gym memberships on January 1, 2023. It was a one-day block that had a strong literal and symbolic message. 

They deployed a series of online and out-of-home ads with copy like “January promises and doesn’t deliver, we don’t speak January” and “January will not text you back next month, we don’t speak January.” 

There were print ads as well. A full page ad in the New York Times that contained a poem about January and the gym’s philosophy around it. Here’s an excerpt: 

January is a language we don’t understand.

A fantasy, delivered to your door in a pastel colored box.

It talks about change. 

It wants you to start something when you should be in the middle of it. 

On the Equinox website on January 1, there was a headline “We don’t speak January” and corresponding copy that explained their decision to not accept new memberships today. It ended with, “We look forward to welcoming you to our Equinox community tomorrow.”

The Results:

The reaction to “We don’t speak January” was strong in both directions. Some criticized the campaign for being exclusionary to people who wanted to improve their health. Others praised it for being bold, smart, and strategically aligned with their brand. Some commenters didn’t understand why the gym wouldn’t want to profit off members who pay the fee and don’t show up. 

In a video on the COLLINS website, one person said, “People who are upset are not their target audience. And their target audience is very much not upset.”

Regardless of the stance people took, the campaign generated 2.4 billion earned media impressions and Equinox saw a 504% increase in brand conversation. It drew major traffic to the website—52% above its benchmark for the first week of January—that set a new record for the most visits in a seven day period. 

That traffic and media attention helped Equinox have its best ever January in terms of sales and leads. It was up 25% in the month-to-date when compared to the previous best performing January. And according to COLLINS, “Of those who signed up for Equinox, 95% are still members a year later and have an average of 2.8 visits per week.”

The “We don’t speak January” campaign won the 2023 ADC Award for advertising and it’s now taught as a case study at a leading MBA program.

Looking to continue its success, Equinox executed the same idea on January 1, 2024. 

The Takeaways:

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Equinox, it’s that telling people to not buy your product can really pay off. Here are a few other takeaways:

1. Be bold

As a brand, it is very easy to conform to the norms of your industry. In the case of Equinox, it would have been much simpler to run a new year’s campaign encouraging people to sign up.

The problem with that is, ordinary doesn’t deliver record-breaking results.

By assessing typical gym behavior and challenging it, Equinox was able to deliver a campaign that stood out in a sea of mundane “New Year, New You” advertising.

2. Speak to your ideal customer

While the Equinox campaign faced criticism for being exclusionary, the comment shared by the COLLINS team was quite pointed, stating that their ideal customer was not the one’s upset.

Let’s face it, the world is more polarizing than ever before, and you will never please everyone. We are certain that there are at least a few readers today who will not enjoy this newsletter, and we need to live with that.

By focusing on your ideal customer, the one who your brand aspires to sell to, you’ll be rewarded with consumers who understand what you are building for the long haul.

Don’t let a few snarky Facebook comments steer your marketing efforts.

3. Know your key selling windows

Marketing is a 365, always-on function, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t certain times of year your brand needs to be more present than others.

Every company has a few key selling occasions annually, and maximizing them is a big part of having a successful year.

If you’re a retailer, the holidays and BFCM are an obvious sales occasion, but finding times of year that are less saturated can provide your brand with an even bigger opportunity.

Or if you're Equinox and Patagonia (who told customers not to shop on Black Friday), you can use your key sales occasions to stage a boycott and make some noise, swimming against the tide.

ICYMI:

Missed the last week of Case Studied? We’ve got you covered.

Last week, we explored Yeti’s innovative campaign, leveraging Google Map’s Public API to map uncharted trails with ambassadors sporting their products.

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