PREEMPTIVE BRIEF SERIES: When we see a marketing challenge out there sometimes we’ll proactively write a “preemptive creative brief” for it and prepare a plan using Ideasicle X to solve that challenge. This is one of those times. Please use your connections to help us get this preemptive brief to someone at Peloton.

The problem:

The pandemic took a lot of prisoners. The lockdowns took all of us prisoner in a way. It took many brands, stores, restaurants, and countless small businesses prisoner, as well. But one rare brand who thrived during the pandemic is Peloton. Work out while in lockdown! An easy sell, particularly since we weren’t spending money in restaurants and stores. And Peloton saw massive growth during that time. But then things changed.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “The [Peloton] stock has fallen in nine of the past 10 trading sessions, losing more than 26% over the past four, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The shares are still up in August but down more than 70% this year.” Ouch.

The post pandemic Peloton crash, which includes a world facing out-of-control inflation, is forcing Peloton to rethink its position, its value, how it goes to market, everything in the marketplace to survive.

And that’s the focus of this preemptive creative brief.

the peloton creative brief

Our approach to a creative brief, in general, is not to provide “the answer,” but to provide just enough information to make a team of 4 brilliant people dangerous, with a splash or two of inspiration to get them thinking. Our business source was a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Peloton’s Quarterly Loss Tops $1.2 Billion as Bike, Treadmill Sales Plunge.”

What follows is our own speculation and experience applied against the business backdrop from the WSJ. Legal disclaimer: no Peloton clients were involved in the development of this brief:

We’re sure it’s not a perfect brief, Peloton, but with your help we can sharpen it and make it even better.

4 Recommended Ideasicle Experts.

Ideasicle X works in teams of 4 people (see Fast Company article I wrote explaining why). We can be quite strategic with exactly how we build that team. In this case, we’re looking for creative ideas, yes, but we also want people who understand marketing beyond just the typical ad. We also want to balance the team with both men and women, and with different disciplines, skewing to the creative side of the house.

So we searched the Ideasicle Experts on the platform (like any subscriber can) and here are the 4 I would try to recruit for Peloton:

Mark Ray

Chief Creative Officer, North

Mark loves underdogs so will love this brief. But he’s an amazing creative thinker with loads of outdoor and health brands experience like Columbia, Hydro Flask, and Nuun sports drink. He’s also an accomplished musician, so will bring that.

Suzanne McKenzie

Design Director, Freelance

In the midst of a dazzling career as a designer in the advertising world, Suzanne started her own responsible, sustainable fashion brand, Able Made, the proceeds of which support a city-youth health and empowerment non-profit.

Armin Molavi

Marketing Strategist, Freelance

Armin is a very creative media guru so will come at this problem accordingly. He’s good at putting himself into the audience’s shoes, so I can see him grounding the team in the Peloton audience’s realities with his insights and ideas.

Monica Taylor

Creative Director, Freelance

Monica is an award winning creative director who is often brought in to turn things around. Lots of fitness experience: Keen, Adidas, Converse, Brooks, Target fitness apparel, etc. She sees the world in a unique way and her ideas always surprise.

Interesting note. Armin has had a Peloton for 5 years and has been captain of the PZPack LGBT team multiple times. Bonus!

Now, these four may not be available, but they might be. And I always say you can take any four of my Ideasicle Experts and put them together on a team and you’ll get great ideas. But I think these particular four would be ideal for this particular project.

Once recruited, give them a week and you won’t believe how many great ideas come out.

Call to action for Peloton:

proxy service

We do it. Click on the button to send me an email requesting a Zoom call so I can explain how we’ll use the Ideasicle X platform within our proXy Service, how we’ll come up with 40-50 ideas and curate/present our favorite 10, and how we’ll provide them within one week for a surprisingly small fee.

subscribe

You do it. Or you can click the subscribe button to run this project (and unlimited more projects) yourself. Set up the project, invite the people above (or others), post the brief, and watch (on average) the 40-50 ideas emerge for an even smaller fee.

Either way you will get the benefit of four brilliant outsiders bringing you mounds of inspiration. Let’s ride.

Nothing is unthinkable!

Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of Ideasicle X. Email him at willb@ideasiclex.com.