Of Popcorn Poppers and Pelotons
Peloton TV spot/Peloton Interactive
One Christmas when I was little, my dad got my mom a popcorn popper. This was either before we had a microwave, or before microwaved popcorn was a thing, so my mom had to do it the old fashioned way. It was a big deal when he got it. We were all at the department store, and my dad and I snuck off away from mom and bought the thing, all clandestine-like, and smuggled it out to the trunk while she was looking at other things. It was all very exciting.
My mother didn’t even like popcorn.
My dad did, though, and he was prone to ask her to make it late in the evening when she was already half-dozing on the couch. This machine, he reasoned, would make it so much easier and therefore be a dream come true for her. He earnestly believed this, and I was too young to grasp how misguided he was.
My mom was not pleased. “A popcorn popper. A popcorn popper, so I can make you popcorn. Gee, thanks!” This was her response, delivered with as much disdainful sarcasm as she could muster. (And lest you feel bad for my dad, well… let’s just say, don’t.)
You know what my mom didn’t do? She didn’t spend the next year documenting her journey toward learning to love popcorn or making herself worthy of the popcorn popper. She didn’t approach the machine hesitantly upon its first use, cringing timidly into the camera as she expressed her nervousness. And she certainly did not thank him the following Christmas by making him a year-end retrospective of her popcorn-popping journey. She shook her head and shoved it into the kitchen cabinet, begrudgingly thanking him for the effort of his anti-gift, and went on with life.
By now you’ve probably seen the infamous Peloton commercial, in which the beautiful, thin, young wife and mother, (I guess her name is Grace but I’m going to call her Claire), in the requisite giant house with floor to ceiling windows overlooking an Aspen-at-Christmas-like view (but is apparently in Boston), giddily receives an exercise bike for Christmas from her husband, whom I have named Geoff (definitely not Jeff).
A gift like no other. pic.twitter.com/AZJCoMy8vw
— Peloton (@onepeloton) November 12, 2019
I suppose we are meant to gather that Claire is thrilled to receive this $2,200+ stationary bike, and the $40 monthly subscription to virtual cycling classes, since she neither bursts into tears nor into sarcasm. But the reaction of most normal folks after seeing this ad is that, as a general life rule, gifting your lady exercise equipment is a bad plan; you might as well just say “Merry Christmas, fat-ass.” Perhaps Claire asked for a Peloton; we don’t know the backstory, except that they are wealthy, have a child, and live in an opulent and very white/ecru/cream-colored home. Maybe she’s a fitness junky and this is her dream gift.
Except that she appears to be an exercise novice. Upon mounting the Peloton for her first ride, she cringes into the camera with scared eyes and a worried brow “I’m a little nervous, but excited!” It’s the kind of expression one might expect from a person about to get her belly button pierced or a first tattoo, not one who is going for a ride on a stationary bike. Throughout the ad, Claire seems apologetic for her very existence.
Then, set to the backdrop of Tal Bachman’s “She’s So High”, there’s the video diary montage of Claire’s love/hate relationship with this bike: the unenthusiastic 6am workout that was SO WORTH IT, her expression of shock that she’s used the thing 5 days in a row, her getting a shout-out from the virtual instructor during her 50th ride. At the end, she’s next to Geoff on the couch the following Christmas, fidgeting nervously and wringing her hands, watching the video of her Year of Peloton. She solemnly remarks how she had no idea how much the bike would change her, and thanks Geoff.
It is unclear exactly how the bike has changed her. Did she go from very thin to imperceptibly thinner? Did she suffer from some sort of chronic pain that the daily exercise relieved? Did she quit whatever high paying job she apparently had in the beginning to become a full-time professional Peloton rider? We don’t know.
What we do know is that people hate this commercial. Many see it as a depiction of a callous husband and his sad, controlled wife; others thought the whole thing was vaguely sinister, like an episode of Black Mirror in which a machine takes over this woman’s life. This particular take was my personal favorite:
when my husband gets me a Peleton for Christmas …….. pic.twitter.com/Z2d3ewMhPu
— Eva Victor (@evaandheriud) December 2, 2019
And this one too:
Thank you for not giving up on me honey. I know I have a lot of work to do…I promise I’m going to fix this. You’re the best husband ever. pic.twitter.com/VJsrxVxZak
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 2, 2019
Some thought the point of the commercial was that Claire worked hard and stuck to a plan and reached her goals, whatever those were. Maybe so, but the woman in the commercial is far from sure of herself, from beginning to end. This commercial doesn’t sell strength or health or a transformation. Claire was a thin fit woman in the beginning, and a thin, fit woman at the end. And that’s fine- exercise is good for everyone. Skinny-fat is a real thing. But if Peloton wanted to sell these bikes, an ad which actually shows how their product can change lives would have been preferable to this one. Maybe if they had started out with a not-quite-as-in-shape woman wishing for a Peloton, physically struggling through her first ride, and ending with her, say, riding in the Tour de France, there would be some point to this commercial. Instead, all we see is a deeply neurotic woman obsessed with a piece of exercise equipment and grateful that her husband indulged her neurosis (assuming he himself was not the actual cause of it.)
It’s not that I see this ad as dangerously glamorizing compulsive exercise or obsession with appearance; it’s not that deep. It’s just an ineffective and confusing ad in a clichéd setting with an annoying main character and vaguely concerning overtones. I don’t get what Peloton was trying to achieve.
But then again, I’m not supposed to get it. I’m not the kind of person with a few thousand dollars to spend on a coat rack.
This is sort of all the marketing for peloton. It is always rich beautiful people in gorgeous houses working out over the london skyline or in front of their giant windows with mountain views. In general this kind of gizmo is for people who are nervous about working out outside for a variety of reasons or really want the group aspect. If that is what those people need, well this is a way to get it.
There is a real dislike of these things in the outdoor communities i follow ( distance running and xc skiing). I get the part they mock but they also are missing where a lot of people are coming from regarding exercise.Report
The cold weather has made it hard for me to do the things I like to do to stay fit. Age has made running as much or as hard as I’d like to a way to make sure I can’t run at all. A couple of years ago I got an AppleWatch, mostly for the fitness nudge aspect. At $800 (I’ve upgraded once) it’s been worth every penny.
I used to think indoor bikes or treadmills were insane. Now, if I had the room and the spare cash, I’d probably be happy to have one.Report
Gee, it sounds like a 1950’s vacuum cleaner ad targeted at husbands. ^_^Report
I once bought my first wife a stick blender for Xmas. Notice I said first wife.
That said if you are not an exercise person than it is really, really hard to get into the groove. I do resistance exercise 3 times a week, mostly to stave off the effects of my disease. When I am feeling up to it, I ride my bikes as that movement is actually pretty easy for longer periods, not to mention I can coast when I need to. I would do none of that if it wasn’t for my condition though. Well, some biking and long walks, mostly as I like to look at things in my environment when I can, but not TV which kills the stationary bike, treadmills and makes me dread my elliptical.
I am not an “exercise person” but rather I was an active person. And they don’t always translate.Report
resistance exercise
“Damn you, Trump!” (shake each fist 10 times)
“Goddam McConnell!” (kick 10 times, alternating legs)
“AOC!” (high-five motion, 10 times with each hand)Report
I couldn’t watch the ad from the above, perhaps it has been pulled. It kind of sounds like, from your description, that what the bike helped her overcome was either loneliness or social anxiety, or maybe both.
I think a lot of people do better at getting exercise when there’s some social context for it, and yet their anxiety about how their performance will portray them before the group keeps them from joining groups. I take the cold weather outside as more of a metaphor for the emotional barriers to just going to a gym and joining a spinning group. Or whatever.
That what it seems like the ad is selling, to me. And yeah, her husband had to get it for her, since she didn’t quite have the courage to do it herself. No, I don’t like that message, but there are definitely people who relate to it.
For me, I’m only gonna get the bike for MrsJay when she asks for it in writing, signed and notarized.Report
I promise you that Peloton did not put that much thought into the commercial.
I mean for starters Peloton is a pretty huge rip-off to begin with, if you want an exercise bike or do something spin-like at home.
That’s a 2200 dollar bike, in a — minimum — million dollar house. The ad is “Buy Peleton and live like the rich do. Thin and rich and happy with their thin richness”.
It’s selling an overpriced and crap exercise bike on middle-class wishful fantasies. The weirdly sexist tilt to it is someone betting a woman’s fantasy is, apparently, a rich husband who loves her enough to give her a chance to lose those extra pounds before he trades her in for a younger model.Report
Selling middle class people on living like the rich do is old. Selling the rich on this is what rich people are supposed to buy is almost at old.
Our admin assistant has one of these. I think the classes and social aspect is what really sells these things. A lot of people really need and crave that which shouldn’t be mocked or looked down on even as expensive as these things are.Report
My first exposure to this whole Peloton thing was Eva Victor’s parody and it had me laughing even though I didn’t have the context. And then I sought out the ad that birthed it and
ugh
I think I sprained a cringing muscle.Report
Some people really like practical gifts, other times they can be quit loaded. I am kind of looking to a bag upgrade to something that is both professional and useable everyday. Other times I am weird and love gifts that other people considering boring like clothing (that I like, not socks)
But this was an absolute disaster combined with some school sexism.Report
I mean I got my wife a Vitamix blender a few years back. She loves to cook. She really wanted it. To the extent that — and I confirmed this after Christmas — if I had missed all the hints, she was gonna buy herself one right after. (And they’re not cheap).
Although to counteract the potential sexism — she is the chef in the family, I can barely make a sandwich and she’s an outright foodie — she also got my a vacuum that I’d been really wanting, because our old one sucked and I wanted something specific to deal with the massive furbeast that lived with us at the time. It was a very domestic Christmas.Report
but isn’t a vacuum “sucking,” actually a good thing?
(sorry. I’ll show myself out.)Report
I was going to say something like that. Lol.Report
Amazon gift cards: Just sayin’, in case anyone was wondering…Report
From The Spectator: Actually, the husband in the Peloton commercial is a hero
Someone had to stand up for husbands!Report
It’s aspirational marketing. They’re trying to convince people that if they have that bike, they’ll somehow get the house and the family and the lifestyle that go with it. Some people fall for it. (Heck, I do, on a smaller scale: one of the knitting magazines I read stages the models wearing the sweaters in things I’d like to be doing: picking apples in the fall, or sitting by a fire playing the guitar surrounded by friends, or browsing in an antiquarian bookstore. And I go “OH I WANT THAT SWEATER” but really I want a life where I have friends around me, and have time to do stuff like go apple-picking and learn to play the guitar. It’s probably a less-insidious thing to get sucked in by, but still).
I dunno. I’m not as incensed by the idea of a guy giving exercise equipment because I can imagine the woman dropping hints all fall, and saying she’d “really like” to quit having to go to the gym to work out, or whatever (though again, the nervousness. Though maybe she was afraid the robotic trainer would judge her in a way that Jorge who leads the Zumba class doesn’t?). And yeah….I would kinda like some higher-end fitness equipment even IF I kind of hate working out. (the extended ad, where she goes “6 am. yay” in a sarcastic voice when she has to get up to work out: I feel that hard, only for me it’s 4:30 am and that hurts WORSE). But I do it because I know it’s good for my health and it helps my screwed-up hip be less screwed-up.
But I think, like I said, my main irritation with the commercial is the same as my irritation with the Lexus-for-Christmas commercials: the sheer perfection of the people’s lives, and the idea that we should celebrate the birth of Our Lord and Savior with a multiple thousand dollar vanity purchase. But whatever.Report
I must have been around 21 or so when I realized that mens magazines like Playboy were not selling sex, but an aspirational lifestyle. The girls were actually secondary to the sports cars, hip clothes, and obscenely complicated stereo systems.Report
Totally agree about the aspirational quality to the commercial – so true.
I literally just wrote a counterpoint to this article (without having read this one) and that’s what I saw in the ad too. She very likely wanted the bike and been dropping hints about it. In my experience there’s no one with a greater passion for workout equipment than people who are already in super good shape and not having to go to the gym would be a huge selling point for me.
I asked for exercise equipment once when I was at my very fittest and got it and I was super happy about it. My husband has bought me various workout gadgets I asked for, and he’s usually like “oh god how much room will this take up”. At no point has he ever been “you need to drop weight, here’s an exercise ball”. He is often trying to throw away my exercise equipment but will still buy me more when I ask for it. So it is possible for a husband to buy his wife workout gear that he doesn’t even enjoy having around to make her happy.Report
I totally would ask for something like this if it was in the realm of financial feasibility! And I routinely ask for kitchen gadgets or cookware. This year i asked for socks.
It’s just- the tone of this ad. The woman’s demeanor. The inexplicable transformation… of what? It is maybe just executed badly.Report
“She very likely wanted the bike and been dropping hints about it.”
Except, here’s the thing — we’re just making that up. The commercial doesn’t show it. What the commercial shows is her dreading using it. Her tone is “Oh god, I have to wake up at 5:00 AM to use the stupid thing”.
I mean I get the implication was supposed to be “Oh, getting into an exercise routine is hard, especially until it’s a habit” but we’re not privy to internal states of mind and what it shows is a woman forcing herself to use an exercise bike she was given as a Christmas gift.
It all could have been fixed with adding a few seconds of her maybe circling exercise bikes in a magazine or saying she loves spin classes but the gym is hard to get to in the winter or basically any indication she wanted an exercise bike.
And like…nobody there noticed or thought to add it in, so instead you get a commercial of a woman looking unhappily surprised by an exercise bike for Christmas, then clearly forcing herself to use it, then thanking her husband for getting her something she apparently didn’t want and didn’t want to use, which has this godawful paternal “Daddy knows best” vibe to it.
It’s like no actual women were involved in the creation of an add aimed at women.Report
Last Christmas my wife asked for a high end cookware set. I never would have bought her something like this unprompted, for fear that it would go over as well as Em’s mom’s popcorn machine. However I figured she wouldn’t ask for something she didn’t want and indeed she really liked the gift (I hedged with a romantic secondary gift just to be sure it wasn’t some kind of trap).
Everyone is different and wants different things. I expect fillyjonk is right, and the angle is really a lifestyle appeal. If you have this thing you too will be as happy and satisfied as these (rich, sexy, fun, perfect) people. It’s definitely consumerism run rampant, and I have a low level disgust with the Christmas season for this reason, but I don’t see it as any more nefarious than the billion other advertisements we’re bombarded with on a daily basis.Report
As a Sales/Marketing professional, I think its an awesome example of mis-translation(s) between sales and marketing and a third party production company.
What’s the number one selling point of the product:
Sales: On-line Live Cycling Community
What’s the number one negative selling point of the product:
Sales: Uncertainty about a Live on-line cycling community
Marketing: aha! So if we show that its ok to be nervous about joining the community, but that its something that’s really easy to do and that it will pay dividends by helping to motivate you and give you a long-term sense of accomplishment?
Sales: Yeah, that would help.
Third party production company: We got this, hold my beer.Report
I could totally see that. Somewhere in there is also a failure to test the ad on selected focus groups.
A little while ago I saw a news story noting that in three days the add knocked $942 million dollars off Peloton’s market value, so I don’t think anyone can say the ad wasn’t quiet powerful. ^_^
I think the actress in the ad should at least get a web redemption from Tosh.0, perhaps turning her now infamous role into her own viral branding. But her contract for the commercial probably prohibits it.Report
I was just coming on here to post a counterpoint to the Peloton ad haters; great minds think alike. 🙂
This is one of those things where I see both sides. I have received some terrible popcorn-popper-esque gifts for sure, and almost took that tack when I was writing about this but this piece is AMAZING and said everything I would have said anyway so I’m so glad I didn’t!
Great piece!Report
Thank you :).Report
There is a part of me that thinks everything about the ad is so perfectly contrived to generate the reaction that I wonder if it was intentional on Peloton’s part. On the other hand, they lost nearly 950 million dollars worth of value so maybe trying to generate controversy was a mistake
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/pelotons-stock-price-plummet-wiped-942-million-market-value-holiday-ad-2019-12-1028737428Report
Peloton responds in the most bland way possible:
https://www.benzinga.com/news/19/12/14932256/peloton-responds-to-backlash-over-its-bike-adReport