Planet Fitness is one of the largest gyms in North America with over 18 million members across 2,400+ locations. The mission is to enhance people's lives by providing a high-quality fitness experience in a welcoming, non-intimidating environment, branding the club as the “Judgement Free Zone®.”

And, the fitness category is expanding. New gyms and at-home competitors enter the category daily. Consumers previously seeking primarily physical benefits, now have a holistic mindset toward their wellbeing and see the mental benefits of fitness being just as important.

Yet, only about 19% of Americans belong to a gym. Why? Barriers make them feel like they don’t belong at all. In fact, 63% say intimidation barriers, like self-consciousness, fear of judgment, or lack of knowledge, are keeping them from joining a gym.

In Q1 2024, Planet Fitness needed to drive new member joins by positioning Planet Fitness as fitness free from intimidation.

How do you convince the over 80% of people who don’t belong to a gym, who’ve been inundated with intimidating fitness barriers, that everybody belongs at Planet Fitness?

Introducing Mother Fitness. We recruited the world’s most empowering fitness queen and influencer, Megan Thee Stallion, to take on the villains of the category—much like a Marvel superhero. She saved legions of people too intimidated to workout and brought them to Planet Fitness, inspiring them with a message that they can belong in fitness.

Not only is Megan Thee Stallion a pop icon, she’s a huge fitness fan in her own right. For her 45M+ devout fan-followers, who heed her every post like religion, Megan is always sharing routines on her feed—highlighting the positive mental and physical benefits of fitness.

Megan’s expertise and positivity made her the perfect partner, solidifying Planet Fitness as the gym where everyone can confidently belong.

Planet Fitness aims to reach current non-gym members, specifically prioritizing Gen Z and multicultural audiences. In January, the fitness category is at its peak level of judgment—full of weight loss challenges, lofty resolutions, and intimidating social influencers. All this judgment leads to major gym intimidation for current non-gym members. In fact, 59% of non-members wish they exercised more, but 90% of people are concerned with how others might perceive them at the gym and 63% say intimidation barriers keep them from joining a gym.

Leveraging our “Judgement Free Zone” positioning, Planet Fitness aimed to break down the fitness barriers keeping non-members from joining, and position themselves as the most inclusive and welcoming gym membership for all. To help this message break through during such a noisy time of year, we partnered with Megan Thee Stallion, who already had a positive perception among all prioritized audience groups.

The campaign launched on New Year’s Eve, a pinnacle cultural moment when fitness is top of mind, and carried into January 2024. Mother Fitness performed live in Times Square during Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve broadcast. In TV, Mother Fitness proved Planet Fitness is “thee” most Judgement Free gym. And on social, where ultra-judgy, toxic gym culture reins supreme, Mother Fitness saved the feeds with 11 unique pieces of content—clapping back at the negativity, launching a #SquatGirlFit TikTok challenge, and arming fans with positive AR filter “AHHfirmations” (inspired by her signature catchphrase).

It was featured on Planet Fitness’ channels and Megan’s, exposing her 45M+ followers to all that Planet Fitness has to offer. Our app featured Megan-blessed workouts, so everyone could move their “body-ody-ody.” Plus, we launched a limited edition merch collab: Thee Judgement Free Collection, where all sale profits went to her organization, The Pete & Thomas Foundation.

The campaign garnered 7.2B earned media impressions, increased positive brand social sentiment to 98% (up from 73% YOY), and achieved a 78% increase in public mentions (YOY) on social. Importantly, it drove consideration: Planet Fitness consideration saw a 7% YOY increase among the Gen Z opportunity audience, and people who saw the ad were +14ppts more likely to consider joining Planet Fitness. Plus, after Mother Fitness’ live performance on New Year’s Eve, Megan Thee Stallion became a trending topic on social platform X. But bigger than that, Mother Fitness empowered everyone to feel like they have a place to belong at Planet Fitness.