93% of teens say they want to stay active over summer break. Yet, many of them don’t know where to turn to achieve that goal. Everything from body image issues to “teens at the gym” being mocked online makes walking into a gym extremely intimidating for teenagers. That’s why Planet Fitness gives teens the chance to work out for FREE all summer in the “Judgement Free Zone” with the High School Summer Pass.
The challenge? Teens are an extremely difficult audience to reach. Their attention is fleeting, their BS meter is high, and they’re inundated with digital messages every second of the day, especially during the summer. In fact, teens lose active attention for ads faster than any other age group. Even in the ads they watch, 56% say they don't see their lifestyle represented.
In order to get the teen audience off the screen and in the gym, the campaign needed to catch their attention and give them the confidence to sign up—using a format they’d actually tune into.
The Objectives:
1. Create awareness for the High School Summer Pass program among teens and parents of teens.
2. Create engagement with the campaign.
3. Drive sign ups for the Planet Fitness High School Summer Pass Program among 14-19 year olds.
4. Encourage participation in the program through workouts logged by teen participants.
The Idea:
Introducing: On This Repisode of High School Summer Pass. A free gym promo disguised as a bingeable teen drama—featuring characters, situations, and stories that assured teens Planet Fitness is a place they can belong.
Created for teen-friendly platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram Reels, “On this Repisode of High School Summer Pass'' parodied the teen dramas high schoolers often binge over the summer. But instead of stereotypical drama like the latest breakup, each storyline comedically centered around life in the gym and key benefits of the High School Summer Pass. Through 10 ‘repisodes’ released over the course of the summer, we turned our “promo language” and “reasons to believe'' into juicy gossip and scandalous plot twists that kept teens coming back for more.
And while the repisodes were perfectly sarcastic and dramatic, they also infused confidence for new gym-goers. Each repisode playfully educated teens on gym etiquette and provided tips and how-to’s to make the gym feel less scary. The cast was also intentionally selected to reflect real teenagers of today—allowing teens to see themselves in the content and giving them a break from the ‘picture perfect’ standard they’re forced to compare themselves to.
The campaign was extended through influencer activations, PR, email and CRM outreach, pricing discounts for post-summer joins, and in-club signage.
The details:
Call-to-Action: Each piece of content ended with a sarcastically spot-on CTA to join and workout for free at PF—always driving to a landing page on PlanetFitness.com for easy access to sign-up.
The Results: We Slayed
1: AWARENESS: The campaign generated more than 5.9 billion total earned impressions and 2,806 earned feature placements—a nearly 50 percent increase over 2022. Coverage ran across a variety of national publications, including (but not limited to) Good Morning America, USA TODAY, CNN Business and CNBC "Mad Money."
2: ENGAGEMENT: Content drove significantly high engagement across influencer, paid, and owned tactics:
3. SIGN UPS: The campaign generated 3.1 million High School Summer Pass signups from May 1st, 2023-September 30th, 2023 and largely contributed to massive Gen Z membership growth in Q3.
4. WORKOUTS: Teens logged 14.5 million workouts over the summer and noted significant impact on wellbeing, with 78% seeing a positive change in mood as a result of working out.
