The Brief
Eight years. Two flagship platforms. One brand that went from category challenger to category leader.
Orangetheory had a great workout and a brand that hadn’t found its voice yet. Chapter one started with an empty parking lot and the same excuse from everyone: “I don’t have time.” Chapter two started with a category flexing abs in a mirror and a brand sitting on real science nobody could feel. Same client, two distinct briefs, one consistent answer — build the work on a real human tension and refuse to let it get watered down.
The Insight
People don’t lack time. They don’t lack abs. They lack a reason that’s bigger than the workout.
Nobody was avoiding the gym because they doubted exercise. The job wasn’t to sell workouts. It was to find the tension in people’s lives and build everything around it. In chapter one, the tension was time. In chapter two, it was the question of what the work was for.
The Work
Two chapters. One operating system.
Chapter 1 — The 25th Hour. The 25th Hour wasn’t a tagline. It was the operating system. Broadcast spots played like short films about reclaimed time. Digital shifted messaging based on time of day — morning guilt, afternoon restlessness, evening collapse. Social walked people through the math of their own schedule. In-studio, the clocks ran at different speeds. One insight held together from the hero film down to the studio floor. Chapter 2 — More Life. Deltoids, pecs, biceps, obliques, glutes, quads, calves. We ignored all of them. People don’t work out to get abs — they work out to live longer, feel better, and show up differently in the world. The heart is the only muscle that matters. More Life launched the first national campaign that didn’t look like a fitness ad. We evolved it through multiple phases — Krewella’s “Greenlights,” Matt Baron’s music-video energy, Dave Meyers’ cinematic science film at Popsicle Studios (the same team behind Missy Elliott and Drake). Five years, one platform. From 250 studios to 1,300+ worldwide.
Eight years. One brand. The campaign kept evolving because the truth never changed.
The Results
Impressions
Studios Worldwide
Systemwide Sales
Aided Awareness
Two chapters, one operating system. The 25th Hour reframed the category around reclaimed time. More Life evolved the brand from workout to lifestyle platform by building every message around the heart — the muscle that keeps you alive. Strategy and execution held in the same hands across eight years.
My Take
The best briefs aren’t about the product. They’re about the tension in someone’s life that the product resolves. “I don’t have time” wasn’t an objection to overcome. It was the entire emotional landscape. Years later, “what’s the workout actually for” was the same question reframed.
I found that tension and then I stayed in the room. Edit suite for the hero film. On set for the social shoots. Reviewing clock mockups for the studios. Not because I don’t trust teams — because the gap between a great insight and a great execution is where most campaigns quietly die.
The work that lasted wasn’t about fitness. It was about time — and the feeling that you’re spending it wrong. More Life kept evolving because it was built on a genuine human truth, not a marketing insight. The platform held because the foundation was real.
The one thing I’d change about chapter one? I held too tight in the early rounds. Gave the team less room than they deserved. The work got better when I learned to direct the vision and let people surprise me. That lesson is what made chapter two scale.