Crunch Fitness' CMO, Chad Waetzig joins The Current Podcast to explore how Crunch is developing their on-demand workout streaming app, how they're leaning into performance marketing versus brand-building and why digital media is the best way to reach its gymgoers.

Episode Transcript

Please note, this transcript  may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.

[00:00:00 ] Damian: I'm Damian Fowler

[00:00:01 ] Ilyse: And I'm Ilyse Liffering. 

[00:00:03 ] Damian: And welcome to this edition of the current 

[00:00:05 ] Ilyse: This week, we're delighted to talk with Chad Waitzig, the CMO of Crunch Fitness, who leads the brand's marketing and communication efforts for its gym locations all over the world.

[00:00:17 ] Damian: Headquartered in New York City, Crunch serves 2. 5 million members with over 460 gyms worldwide and continues to expand in the U. S. and around the globe.

[00:00:28 ] While Crunch has built a community of fitness enthusiasts at its physical locations, it has also been on a mission of expanding its reach on digital.

[00:00:37 ] We start by asking Chad about how he'd characterize the gym's marketing goals.

[00:00:43 ] Ilyse: so Chad, how would you characterize the marketing mission for Crunch?

[00:00:48 ] Chad: It's really important for us, to both build comprehension around what the crunch brand experience is.

[00:01:05 ] And we think we've got a pretty unique offering in the high value, low price space and in fitness, but it's also to drive leads and it's to fill that, consumer funnel, with folks who are interested in exploring a fitness workout, And building that lead base so that our franchisees, our partners in our marketing journey, can invite them into the gym, give them a free trial, and encourage them to join and continue their fitness journey with us.

[00:01:32 ] so as we think about what we do day in and day out, I'd say that, 80 percent of what we do is focused on how can we introduce the brand to more people and drive leads into the system.

[00:01:41 ] Damian: Now, can you talk about your latest campaign and how that works? I know you're talking about, a kind of big campaign, but you're also then trying to target local gyms and gym spaces and demographics. Can you talk about how that relationship works?

[00:01:54 ] what about the new campaign? Feel good, not bad? 

[00:01:57 ] Chad: Yeah. Yeah. So we're, really excited about feel good. [00:02:00 ] Not bad. we launched the campaign on December the 26th, which is, basically the start of our year, immediately after Christmas. and the, conceit or the gestalt of the campaign is to. recognize that as a country, we've gone through a lot of bad stuff, and, there's a lot of bad in the world, and we don't want to focus on the bad in the world, but we know that it's out there and  how do we, recognize that a way to combat that is to feel good, and to feel good.

[00:02:31 ] You can do that through working out. So the whole campaign is focused on this idea of telling a story about the bad things that happen through silly, humorous, metaphors, banging your head on a drawer, getting stuck in a revolving door, waking up in the desert on a camping trip with a snake.

[00:02:52 ] Attached to your face, really absurd, silly things as a metaphor for the bad in the world, and that through working out and through [00:03:00 ] working out at crunch, you can get those endorphin rushes. you can escape from the world. You can forget all the bad that's out there and really focus on yourself.

[00:03:07 ] You can really lose yourself at crunch. so that's, the gestalt behind the campaign or the, idea behind the campaign. Now, the way we execute that campaign, and we do it in partnership with our franchisees, is through a mix of brand marketing, performance marketing, and retail marketing. And so we've designed, creative assets that kind of take you through that entire journey, whether it's television, radio, direct mail, or digital marketing assets, that really tell that story in a layered way as a consumer moves through the journey.

[00:03:41 ] Damian: Yeah, that's interesting. now you mentioned the campaign, the Feel Good, Not Bad campaign is one that really dives into humor to convey how fitness can be fun. We recently had on this podcast, the CEO of BBDO, Andrew Robertson, who talked about the importance of funny ads and why they're so important.

[00:03:59 ] [00:04:00 ] To building a brand's identity. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. and why is Funny the right fit for you?

[00:04:07 ] Chad: Yeah, first of all, I would agree with his assessment. And, at our heart, we're storytellers, right? All marketers are storytellers, and we're telling the story of our brand and our business. And humor, leveraging humor, is one way to tell that story in a way that we think breaks through the clutter.

[00:04:26 ] We're a gym for goodness sakes, right? We're a place where people come to, to get better. whether that's more, more flexible, whether that's to build endurance, whether that's to lose weight, whether that's to gain strength and muscle, but we also don't take ourselves too seriously. And so we think that, our no judgments philosophy, the way we approach our members and the way we approach our experience, it really lends itself well to humor.

[00:04:50 ] But the other thing to keep in mind too, is that. Humor can work in almost any business. think about insurance. 20 years ago, if you had said, we're going to use humor to tell [00:05:00 ] the insurance story, people would have thought you were crazy. Maybe it's more than 20 years now, but, Geico really broke through the clutter and now look at everybody in that category, right?

[00:05:08 ] They all leverage humor for something that is not a very funny product. our product isn't funny, but our product and our experience is fun. And we think humor helps us tell that story. 

[00:05:19 ] Ilyse: Now here we talk a lot about digital channels, obviously, programmatic, CTV, and, there's a Common philosophy or really it's just a fact at this point that, that's a good way to reach like younger consumers. is that what you are finding? Are you trying to reach millennials and Gen Zers specifically?

[00:05:44 ] ​Or are you looking at whole cohorts of people? Consumers, what is your approach?

[00:05:50 ] Chad: our core consumer is somebody that we call young strong on social, they are our north star. They're the group that we [00:06:00 ] focus on, for crunch, about a quarter of our member base is made up of. Of people 18 to 24, about a third of our member base are members 25 to 34, so the majority of our members are in that 18 to 34 age range, and that's our young, strong and social group.

[00:06:16 ] Now, we run, we have, campaigns available for our network, to target seniors, active seniors. boomers, Gen, Gen Xers like me, but really our focus is on the 18 to 34 and we do find that digital media channels, are really the best way to reach that audience, right? They, by and large, they're not cable TV subscribers.

[00:06:39 ] they watch a lot of YouTube. They're on social media. and we find that, one of the best ways for us to build awareness is either through CTV, or through YouTube. Uh, and those are the two channels where we are dominant.

[00:06:52 ] Ilyse: And I know you've also spoken about, TV itself too, a little bit. How has like this omni [00:07:00 ] channel like approach really benefited your brand?

[00:07:04 ] Chad: Yeah, for us, it's been a journey. today we've got 460 gyms and about 2. 7 million members, and we're celebrating our 35th anniversary, but, we're still a small business. when I joined Crunch seven years ago, we had about 125 locations and, obviously we were significantly smaller.

[00:07:21 ] So our dollars, We had to make a strategic choice back then, and our strategic choice was to invest in performance marketing almost exclusively at the expense of brand marketing. Now that we've grown, and now that we're bigger, and we have the, The resources available to us the critical mass. We have found that the omni channel approach for us has paid off in spades.

[00:07:46 ] Our brand awareness has tripled in the last three years, whether that's aided or unaided. And we find that then drives. more consumers to consider us. Our consideration is higher, which then [00:08:00 ] leads to greater lead production, and greater sales. And, the brand doesn't do it alone.

[00:08:05 ] Our franchisees play a big role in that, but if we had not made that strategic shift to really focus on the Omni channel, I don't think our results would be as strong as they are today.

[00:08:17 ] Ilyse: And today, are you mostly now looking at consumer retention or learning new members to join? It does seem, we talk a lot about streaming wars, but it does seem like there's quite a lot of gym wars out there now.

[00:08:31 ] Chad: Yeah, you know, the fitness industry is, really an interesting one. It is competitive. so today about one in five Americans belongs to a gym, a health club, the Y, or a boutique studio. Now, that number 10, 15 years ago was probably closer to 15%, 14%. The category itself is growing.

[00:08:51 ] So when, crunch wins, the whole category wins when our competitors, when the category wins, cause we are growing the category, but we do compete [00:09:00 ] for a lot of the same folks, people do switch gyms, they break up with their old gym, they, join a new gym. and so it is a mix for us on the acquisition side.

[00:09:09 ] To both bring new people into the category that maybe are just considering a gym for the very first time, but we're also trying to steal members from other clubs that without a doubt, and our competition would probably say the same. So in answer to your big