Tonal’s Epic Ad I’m Off for the Workout

Tonal, a smart home gym looking to boost holiday sales, has ditched the long-standing black-and-white corporate logo and dates back to the Victorian era.

A huge variation on the gym—with inspiration from classic sports advertising and indie auteurs like Michel Gondry—Tonal’s 2-minute ad compares its high-tech product to kettle bells greens, battle ropes, and funky vintage horse bikes. .

Message: This is not your ancestors’ workout.

The campaign, called “Future of Fitness,” comes from Quality Experience, a startup that recently launched its first effort, “Do Something That Matters” for Shutterfly. The store landed Tonal’s business without a competitive edge, becoming a record label by the end of the summer.

Tonal wanted a “clear message” that could play up the difference in the connected body type, “making the product approachable and removing barriers to adoption,” said Meg Douglass, vice president of marketing and Huge alum. and Gray Group, he told ADWEEK. “We wanted it to be bold, we knew we were going to start with a loud time.”

Along with the brand’s new visual assets, Quality Experience has developed a new strategy and marketing platform, “Power Progress,” with the tagline, “Stop working in the past.”

While old-school barbells and rowing machines are still staples of the gym, they pale in comparison to Tonal’s personalized technology and AI-powered training, the developers said.

“Some of these workouts haven’t changed since the Victorian era — they’re old,” Ari Weiss, the agency’s creative chair, told ADWEEK. “We took that insight and came up with a vision for a solution: ditch the old practice.”