Planet Fitness tasked us with turning them into a leader in the fitness category. We launched “The World Judges. We Don’t” on New Year’s Eve live in Times Square to show a global audience that we’re more than a gym, we’re a beacon of judgment-free attitudes in a judgment-filled world. Celebrity hosts Fergie and Jenny McCarthy brought our new “Be Free” tagline to life with fanfare fit for the night by presenting the world’s first Be Free Award. Minutes before midnight, we launched with a :60 Countdown launch spot that asked viewers to have a judgment-free 2017. We presented the first annual Be Free Awards to celebrities who dominated 2016 with judgment-free messages; DJ Khaled with his advice to his unparalleled Snapchat following, and Gaten Matarazzo with his loveable role as a judgment defying middle-schooler on Stranger Things.

The key to the campaign was hidden in plain sight: Planet Fitness’s “Thumbs Up” logo represents exactly how it feels to be judgment free. So, we used it to add new meaning to the brand’s DNA, creating a Planet Fitness-branded thumbs up emoji that lives in every aspect of their brand, tagline included. The campaign launched on the fitness world’s Super Bowl: New Year’s Eve, with a 60-second New Year’s Eve countdown spot minutes before midnight. We gave a “Be Free Award” to two celebrities who embodied the judgment-free spirit, live in Times Square. Planet Fitness-branded stages, billboards and hats worn by thousands were seen by millions more globally. All the while, we maintained a cross-platform social media presence to keep our message ubiquitous.

Through our presence in Times Square alone, we gained millions of impressions from the original broadcast as well as coverage on global news outlets, from the major American networks all the way to China. And the work did its job as well: from our 73.4M media impressions in the U.S., Planet Fitness saw a 67% increase in joins and surpassed their single-day join record by 162%. On our way to becoming the most Googled gym in the U.S., we earned 524.3K engagements on social media. The whole world was watching, and a whole lot of them responded.