Marketers love talking about their strategy to reach younger consumers, particularly Gen Z.
But not Therabody.
The fitness-focused brand, which manufactures “percussive therapy” and handheld massage products, kept hearing from its core audience of performance athletes that they’d also like to see products their aging parents could use, according to CMO John Solomon. This customer feedback prompted Therabody to push into a new area: wellness.
Therabody developed three new massage devices that focus on everyday benefits to people’s mental and physical health. One device, for example, helps with relaxation, while another provides percussive massage therapy, which users can activate with a single button (in keeping with Therabody’s goal to be more accessible).
“The Workout Called Life” campaign, which Therabody launched in October to complement its new product line, aims to reach consumers who are looking to manage their stress, sleep and pain, Solomon said.
This group includes just about everyone: busy parents who lift up their kids and throw out their backs, grandparents who want to play with their grandkids, frontline workers like nurses and delivery drivers who are constantly on their feet and office workers who spend all day sitting in front of a screen.
“Your workout might not look like being in the gym or training for a marathon,” Solomon said. “If your workout looks like hosting the family for dinner or shopping and running around, recovery is just as important.”
(Fun fact: Therabody’s flagship massage gun was born when the company’s founder, Dr. Jason Wersland, jury-rigged a jigsaw power tool by attaching a tennis ball to the end of it.)
Solomon spoke with AdExchanger.
AdExchanger: How do you target different groups of consumers?
JOHN SOLOMON: We take an audience-based approach to our targeting.
If we’re going after elite athletes, we work with [exercise-tracking app] Strava, Outside Magazine, Runner’s World and influencers in that space.
With wellness, it’s more of a mass play. We air on TV shows where the consumer is. Some of our active aging consumers are still heavily watching cable news, so we look at those channels. For consumers who aren’t watching TV, we target YouTube a lot now.
We’re also in 10,000 stores, and one of our products is featured in Best Buy’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday ad.
Why does Therabody prioritize targeting older users?
We know how important movement is to health and wellness, and we know when older people stop moving, that’s when a lot of health issues happen.
What tactics does Therabody use to reach older audiences?
We lean heavily into some of the social channels they’re more likely to be on, like Facebook. We tailor the content to be more educational and longer format and guide them through it, versus something quick and snappy that might work on a platform like TikTok.
What’s your first-party data strategy?
We do a lot of consumer research: formal research studies, running surveys, social listening.
We have 20 of our own retail locations, and five of those offer a more immersive membership experience. We’re constantly getting direct consumer feedback from our retail locations based on what’s working and what’s not.
And through our app’s onboarding process, the customer can tell us what they’re interested in, what activities they’re doing and any ailments they have. We also plug into Apple’s HealthKit and integrate with Strava.
How does sonic branding play into Therabody’s marketing?
Many of our products are now being infused with sonic-based therapy. We came out with a lounger that has sound therapy built into it, for example, and we have a feature in our app that uses sound to help users fall asleep or focus.
Marketers need to have brand consistency and uniformity, including from a sonic standpoint. We have a team that focuses on the science of sound and frequencies [and] how they’re used in our products and in the content we create.
Are you using generative AI in your marketing?
AI is a great tool to brainstorm and get going when you’re looking for some thought starters for copy or you want to bring a concept to life.
We’re in the early stages of using it and seeing how it can improve workflow, but we’re not using it in the formal creative development process yet, in terms of making videos or imagery.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
