Inspiration vs. Call to Action
What’s the purpose of your sports or fitness video? To sell a product, a service or tickets to a game/event?
Every advertising campaign starts with a target market, and most businesses are fully aware of who they need to attract. For sports and fitness clients, marketing plans are geared towards new business. For instance, would a gym advertise for anything other than to attract new members? Would a college team struggling to fill seats promote a basketball game for it’s die hard fans? Of course not. If you love a team, you know their schedule. Trust me.
The goal of advertising should always be to grow your business. I’ve produced commercials for a wide variety of sports and fitness clients. I’ve found that my most successful videos have motivated viewers through inspiration… not some straight forward call to action. Your messages shouldn’t have to say, “Hey buddy, maybe it’s time to get off the couch and join a gym” or “You will never be as fast as the other guy wearing this shoe.”
When conceptualizing a sports or fitness video, I always keep a slightly modified sports slogan in mind. “Just do show it.” I am a firm believer that if you capture the experience, the message will sell itself.
Crossfit the Tracks – Production Notes
Now on to the geek portion of this post. Sublime Media Group has produced commercials and videos for multiple gyms and fitness groups over the years. When we were approached by Crossfit the Tracks, located in the greater Cincinnati area, about producing a commercial for their new Box (Crossfit Gym) we were excited to start brainstorming right away. But first we had to do our research because Crossfit was new to all of us. After some time spent hanging out with our good friend Google, we were good to go. Our team decided to capture the experience of a Crossfit workout with slow motion shots cut to an epic dubstep song. People’s minds=blown. Or at least mine was.
The lighting for this commercial shoot was the most time consuming aspect. We wanted to blackout certain shots to make the subject of the workout the focal point. The song builds through the individual workouts and then breaks down. When the beat drops the group workout commences. You see a large group of people working out together. Challenging each other. Which is a big part of the Crossfit experience.
My favorite shot features three subjects chalking their hands. I love the way the chalk looks shot at 60fps. Everyone was easy to work with. It was also refreshing to see a group so dedicated to bettering their health and physical fitness.
I hope you enjoy this commercial. If you are a Crossfit owner that might be interested in a video for your box, please don’t hesitate to contact us. This ad provided amazing results for Crossfit the Tracks.
Crossfit the Tracks was shot on the Canon 5D Mark III and edited in Premiere CC.
