Time to level up
Early in their project, Your Trainer rented our studio for a simple fitness shoot. As we were talking shop at wrap, a wild goal of transforming at-home training began to take shape. I quickly saw that with the right production, editing, and workflow, a training app could be much more than short video blocks pasted together.
Our teams hit it off from the start. We had shared values: quality content over a high maintenance, fixed production, a focus on trainer personalities, and a better training algorithm and app experience. We were making it easier to access good exercises with trainers you’d want to work with. It wasn’t about calories or vanity. It was about building healthy habits and making fitness work for the real people. From our first meetings, we were truly invested in their ability to transform themselves: from the trainers to marketing to app design, we believed in their ability to shape a user’s health and wellness.
I knew that with their fitness creativity and my creative planning, we could really take this to the next level. And we did. This was a transformative growth opportunity, and we built an intuitive product to help active people of all ilk achieve a sustainable, healthier lifestyle.
From our first meetings, we were truly invested in their ability to transform themselves: from the trainers to marketing to app design, we believed in their ability to shape a user’s health and wellness.
To change the game, do something game-changing
To satisfy that constant desire for new material, we needed to develop a lot of content. My team and I laid out a workflow to create thousands of custom fitness videos, enough to feed the smart algorithm Your Trainer was developing.
Creativity isn’t always just about creative, and for this project I had to envision a workflow that emphasized the amazing trainer personalities we developed. We filmed 100 exercise blocks a day, nearly 1,000 blocks in a shoot, and were strategic in scaling this workflow by minimizing transcoding and editing demands. As a result, thousands of videos for cardio, strength, mobility, yoga, and more were almost immediately ready for web, mobile, and TV.
All production decisions were made with creative intention – to create flexible content that would fuel the algorithm, truly engage users, and maximize speed to market to build the brand.
More points of contact in a crowded field
I’m used to competing in a crowded field, but we were up against well-established brands like Nike and Daily Burn. It wasn’t enough to have a great marketing campaign for a great app; everyone else had that too. I had to be strategic in positioning by learning every competitor’s strengths and devising a plan to outpace all of them in every aspect with smaller budgets.
This project deserved a holistic creative strategy without much room for error. I led a strategy to:
- Rebrand from the more generic Fitness Field to Your Trainer
- Design an investor site to showcase the client’s platform
- Build design assets for ads, mobile app, app store, and social
- Set minimalist art direction and video production style to focus on ease of use, the trainers, and their personalities
- Create corporate presentations and decks to raise visibility in the fitness and digital learning spaces
- Devise a social media strategy geared toward community building – connecting users to a custom fitness program and each other
By taking the brand in a new direction and focusing on community, we offloaded brand building to the trainers, the users, and digital ad content. We were able to focus our strategic efforts instead of being stretched thin with a campaign leaning on influencers, expensive ad buys, and sponsorships.
Searching for a new partner, together
When I work with a client, I consider us one team, working together to bring our collective vision to life. We knew the right strategic partner would help us bring customized fitness to a broader audience, so after our library and audience reached a competitive size we started pursuing partners.
Everything we had worked for was leading up this moment. I guided this original idea of personalized training with smart tech into a brand that could stand with anyone else in the field. The pitch decks, demo reels, and commercials. The trainer’s personalities coming to life on social media. All of it carefully crafted to convey simplicity, accessibility, and authenticity, powered by a sophisticated, one-of-a-kind algorithm that enabled a level of customization you just couldn’t get anywhere else.
After about a year of looking for the right partner, we ultimately closed a multi-million dollar deal with 24 Hour Fitness for app development, content creation, and marketing. Instead of trying to quickly become a production and app development company, 24 Hour Fitness capitalized on all of our work and brand building and knew that we were the best partner for this new 24Go platform.
We didn’t stop there. We managed the rebrand of the app and videos to prepare Your Trainer for the next level with 24Go. The app now has X million users and is worth one billion dollars.
