Think back to the start of January. It’s New Year’s Day, you have the hangover from hell and your jeans are starting to feel the stretch after all those turkey sandwiches and Celebrations.
‘That’s quite enough’, you tell yourself.
True to character, marketers love tapping into our search for a clean slate after the excesses of the festive season, and are eager to offer us the key to transformation.
Before we’ve even taken the decorations down, consumers are slammed with adverts that tell us we need to go on the best holiday of our lives, or that we need to hit the gym hard.
Yet, for marketers, two realities have changed the game: firstly, statistics make it easy to be cynical about resolutions, because around 32% of people have already dropped the ball by the middle of January.
Secondly, Gen Z consumers who grew up with influencer culture and idealised images of people’s lives on Instagram are more conscious of issues like body positivity than the generations before them.
Quite simply, people are exhausted with perfectionism.
The best advertisers are finding ways to respond to our fatigue of hustle culture by appealing to consumers in more holistic, and frankly fun ways.
From exercise to diet or alcohol free booze, Marketing Beat takes a look back at some of the campaigns that broke the mould in January 2024.
‘The most helpful thing is to be honest’
Most gym campaigns show off shiny new facilities and body beautiful gym bunnies, alongside perky trial offers that entice people to the treadmill.
For those of us whose idea of exercise is breathlessly running for the bus, this can be off putting.
Besides, not all of us have the time or money to go to expensive pilates classes clad in equally pricey gear.
However, Gym Group, which offers 24/7 no-contract memberships, took a different approach, choosing to showcase proximity and accessibility with a hyper-localised ad campaign that focused on the calamity that occurs when you try to work out at home.
“It has to be a bit of democratisation for everyone which means you can’t focus on one version of fitness,” says Dept creative director Bel Moretti who worked on the campaign.
“The one thing that we’re all connected over, regardless of our level of fitness, is the fact that it’s easier to go to a place that’s right near your house.”
She explained that they found that about 42% of the population that live within a five mile radius of a Gym Group gym.
Moretti adds: “We just made it helpful, which is why all the OOH and video work was actual directions. We can get really lost in trying to be creatively flexible all the time but sometimes the most helpful thing is to be honest”.
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Tapping into the spiritual
As lots of socialising is carried out around bars and pubs, and cutting back on alcohol can make us feel less fun, conjuring up images of puritanism and virtuosity tied up with religious themes of abstinence.
However, younger generations are keen to cut down on booze without damaging their social lives.
Many are also “sober curious”, adopting low and no alcohol options alongside the harder stuff.
As part of its initiative to spread the message around Dry January as a helpful way of cutting back, Alcohol Change UK made beer brand Lucky Saint its official beer in 2022, and has embraced other options such as Trip CBD drinks.
This taps into the fact that consumers want something more than just a Coke or a glass of water, for that sophisticated and unique edge.
Alcohol Change UK CEO Dr Richard Piper adds that with the proliferation of new partnerships and options, this year’s Dry January uptake is “higher than its ever been”.
In order to flip common conceptions about drinking alcohol-free options on their head, Lucky Saint launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign which subversively centres on religious iconography.
With slogans like ‘Lead me not into temptation’, ‘Thou shalt not, not drink’, ‘Divine Intervention’, and ‘Our Saviour’ it plays on notions of Christian virtuosity.
Fittingly, Lucky Saint marketing and ecommerce director Kerttu Inkeroinen explains: “The Lucky Saint name and brand world leans in to beer’s brewing history that began in monasteries with monks hundreds of years ago, and this is where we’ve taken our tone of voice from as well.”
To top off the campaign, the alcohol-free brand has also created a pub called The Lucky Saint in order to highlight that there’s no need to be a hermit (even if you are a saint).
“As an alcohol free brand we have license to go where alcoholic beer can’t, and one of our mantras is ‘Break rules, honour traditions’ – this means sampling athletes at finish lines instead of the viewers and being included in lunch meal deals,” Inkeroinen explains.
Even beyond Dry January, Veganuary campaigns like those of Beyond Meat and French brand Violife have also tapped into the fact that the modern consumer exploring vegan options doesn’t want to feel restricted to lentils and lettuce – they want a hearty burger just as much as the next person.
Reframing January : ‘Cutting the new year, new me cr*p’
Meanwhile, provocative actor Gymbox, known for causing controversy with stunts such as fake adverts on top of buses, has also flipped the gym aesthetic on its head.
It also hones in on how its offering fits with the busy lifestyles of Londoners.
As brand and marketing director Rory McEntee bluntly puts it, it’s centred on “cutting the new year, new me crap”.
With slogans like ‘Faking it 1am, shaking it 11am’ and ‘Swotting 11pm, squatting 6am’, McEntee explains that to create the campaign Gymbox asked real Londoners what they do with their time.
When McEntee found that Global had not managed to get his campaign posters up promptly, he was furious, going as far as calling them out on social media.
“My good friends at Global must be polishing off their Baileys. Despite providing our New Year campaigns artwork in early December and agreeing a change date before the end of the year, I’ve been left red face with arguably the greatest gym promotion ever in the UK,” he wrote.
Despite McEntee’s frustration, the campaign has a jam-packed schedule, with stunts including an event at Morley’s chicken shop where gym revellers and chicken connoisseurs alike can get access to free wings, fittingly in a box which reads ‘Wings at 2am. Legs at 10am’.
Whether it’s being outspoken on LinkedIn, or combining less healthy habits such as a penchant for chicken wings with the act of going to the gym – Gymbox is cleverly appealing to consumer’s desires for authenticity and relatability.
McEntee’s attitude of keeping it authentic, and about incorporating healthier options into our often busy and highly pressurised lifestyles is probably symptomatic of what the best January adverts have done in 2024.
It’s easy to see marketing as about selling perfection, but that’s not sustainable.
The best solutions uplift consumers in our worst and most devilish moments, and don’t just laud us when we are at our most saintly.
