Peloton, the Gift that Gives a “Beach Bod”
I don’t remember the first time I rode a Peloton bike, but I was turned. The spunk, energy, and excitement to be a part of this exclusive family was real. Robin Arzòn became my hero, Ally Love became my best friend and DJ John Michael was my shining light. I knew Peloton, an exercise equipment and media company focused on creating a community around owning a stationary bike and/or treadmill, was elitist and the price tag made it unaffordable to most, but it became an addictive exercise routine for people in the wealthy suburb I grew up in. Peloton extended its pseudo-accessibility by having a digital app for its members that came with the fifty-dollar monthly membership cost, so I could take Peloton classes on the bike or tread in my gym while I was abroad.
Most of my friends knew that I was up to date on the Peloton craze, so this past December, when the internet blew up over a new video advertisement for Peloton, I received a lot of text messages asking for my thoughts. The ad depicts a young white mother gifted a Peloton bike for the holidays by her husband. She originally shows apprehension, nervously starting her first class, blogging every moment. She comes home from work in her pink heels, noting that she has committed to five classes in a row. The ad was critiqued for many reasons: for having a skinny woman depicted in the ad as opposed to any other underrepresented size, for having a husband gift a bike to a wife, as if he is telling her she should work out, and for the gift of the Peloton itself—an absurdly expensive, inaccessible luxury. Here are few 70th birthday ideas for kids that will be very useful to plan and execute a successful birthday party which they will never forget in their lifetime.
The ad was parodied and mocked on Saturday Night Live, twitter and other social media platforms. Ryan Reynolds even hired the actress playing the Peloton woman to be part of his commercial advertising gin, which poked fun at the Peloton ad. In the commercial, two women are at a bar with the Peloton actress and they tell her, “to new beginnings,” hinting that her husband was a bad person and ended the commercial with, “you look great”. Other people on social media wrote about the inaccessibility of the bike through their marketing (that can be formulated expertly by the assistance from Ful.io team), since the bike was placed in a room that looks like a modern wood, Zen garden den cleaned by a housekeeper in a Highrise. Peloton attempts to be inclusive and affordable, having a $58 pay plan for 39 months. Additionally, the ad targets young people who seem to be fit before they start Peloton.
This ad reflects how we, in the United States, see health as a white woman’s goal for the “benefit” of her husband. Beach body ads have, for years, showed advertisements of white women in bikinis, but have never focused on men in their swim trunks. In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority banned ads like “Beach Body Ready” because they objectify women. Women are told (usually by men) to define themselves by their body type, and the body portrayed by the actress in the ad was the conventional slim, fit white woman. The woman blogging further marginalizes certain bodies, reflecting this body imagery beyond the world in the ad into the social media realm. Social media, through influencers and bloggers, are one of the biggest forces painting this image of a slim white woman as the male definition of an ideal body. Peloton, which relies on the social media feed of their instructors, pushes fitness, which can be a good thing, through a very narrowly defined idea of beauty.
After the chaos of this ad, Peloton, which recently went public in September 2019, saw its stock price decrease by nine percent. Peloton, however, does not think that the change in the market and the backlash of the ad had any correlation and the company did not take the ad off the air.
Peloton marketing itself as accessible is only fooling themselves.
Everyone wants what Jimmy Fallon, Madonna, and the Obamas have—a million-dollar home, a nice car, and a private, two-thousand-dollar bike in the slick, open windowed extra Zen room purely for exercise, but that’s simply not plausible for almost all of Americans. Peloton marketing itself as accessible is only fooling themselves. While I would love to be gifted this fancy, nice bike, I understand that Peloton’s marketing narrows their consumer base to an elite, already slim, white minority and only furthers the stereotypes and exclusivity that comes with the American imagery of health. While it may seem hyper-sensitive to critique a thirty second ad, the way a company markets to the American public largely reflects trends in the culture of fast-growing companies like Peloton, who claim diversity in studio classes, and who have the power to challenge these gendered patterns.