Les Mills is the largest group fitness provider with over 6 million active users, 20,000 partner gyms, an estimated revenue of close to $1 billion dollars…(1)
And a strategic approach to advertising that’s worth a closer look.
So, for this month’s ad teardown, let’s dive deeper into Les Mills’ ads and see what we can learn from them.
For starters, where does Les Mills run ads? (*in the U.S. as of Nov 24)
Facebook Ads – ✅ (~150 ads)
Google Ads – ✅ (~2,000 ads 🤯)
TikTok Ads – ✅ (65 ads)
Pinterest Ads – ✅ (well, until May 2024)
LinkedIn Ads – ✅ (54 ads)
I think it’s safe to say that once you start considering online fitness classes, you’ll be seeing them around 😉 (speaking from experience here – see Lesson 4 below)
When a brand runs this many ads, there’s always something to learn. Here are 5 key takeaways from Les Mills’ approach (+3 bite-sized ones 🍪).
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5 advertising lessons from Les Mills
Advertising lessons from the world’s largest 🏋 fitness provider and what I’d do differently.
Lesson 1: Use proven copywriting formulas
AIDA or Attention-Interest-Desire-Action.
Les Mills leans heavily on the classic formula in their ad copy and video scripts, and if you ask me, it’s working well for them.
Even their short brand-building ads deliver punchy mini-AIDA messages interlaced with well-matched clips to peak attention.
*In a cool British accent*
“Les Mills is up before the alarm, sweating out Saturday on Sunday. Les Mills is worth knowing.”
Taking notes ✍️ 😳
What I’d do differently: Instead of focusing on the same approach across all of the ads, I’d test separate net-new creatives with different focuses such as “beginners welcome”, “inclusive fitness”, “the Les Mills difference”, etc.
Key takeaway: Incorporate copywriting formulas into your copy and video scripts, and test different approaches to unlock more reach and growth.
Lesson 2: Reusing ads is okay (but is it optimal?)
Les Mills uses pretty much the same ads across all of their B2C channels – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest.
And it’s a-okay.
While not every ad approach is transferrable between channels, Les Mills’ ads are mostly cinematic videos and statics that work well enough across all platforms.
But is it optimal?
No, and here’s what I’d do differently: I’d test more native and organic-looking ads across Facebook/IG and YouTube Shorts to help differentiate the media mix and improve conversions. Both Peloton and BODi (Beach Body) have a higher percentage of native-to-cinematic ads compared to Les Mills.
▸ Related articles: Facebook Ads Testing: Test-to-Win Method
Key takeaway: You can reuse your ads across multiple ad channels, but for an optimal approach consider testing native ads for seamless viewing, higher reach, and, occasionally, better conversions.
What about TikTok Ads, you ask?
Surprisingly, all of their 65 active TikTok Ads are about recruiting instructors 🤷♂️.
Lesson 3: Don’t skip brand awareness
Judging by their ad content (and Google Ads Transparency Center displaying internal file names 🫣), Les Mills breaks down its ad campaigns into a funnel approach:
Awareness (Brand) → Consideration (doubles as Prospecting and MOF?) → Trial-to-subscriber remarketing / Subscription renewal remarketing
At first glance, there’s nothing new here. 🥱
However, once you start digging through the ad libraries, you realize that a significant portion of the budget goes towards awareness/brand-building.
Makes sense, coming from the brand behind a series of elaborate awareness campaigns, such as this “Be Imperfect” campaign.
What’s the point, you ask?
I believe that other than positioning, communicating brand values, and contributing brand lift, this achieves a very practical goal for Les Mills:
It expands the reach of their campaigns and adds more people to the top of the funnel – a very important ad strategy component for advertisers in limited or competitive markets.
Often, you can only find so many people already interested in your product/service before you need to start going after new, cold audiences.
Key takeaway: Don’t skip awareness-building when advertising in limited or competitive markets (or on larger budgets).
Here’s what I’d do differently: The ads do a good job of relaying the Les Mills “vibe”, but I’d test captions or additional text overlay to make sure people get what the ad — and the brand — is about with sound off. Remember, most of your traffic comes from mobile, and 75% of people keep their phone on mute, even when watching video ads.
I tried it with this awareness ad and, unfortunately, it just doesn’t do a good job of introducing the brand.
The text on screen reads: “Who is Les Mills? – Les Mills is in your garage – Taking centre stage – Now you work it out – Les Mills: Choose happy”
Going by just the text on screen you get an ad seriously lacking context.
Lesson 4: Don’t remind once — remind many times, across different platforms and mediums.
Having once signed up for Les Mills’ free trial, I kept seeing their remarketing ads over and over and over again, everywhere, for what felt like eternity.
Well, it was actually a few months, but still.
Les Mills’ marketing team knows that turning trials into customers is a multi-touchpoint process that spans different platforms and mediums and takes time.
I bet it cuts quite significantly into Les Mills’ return on the initial $179/year premium plan purchase, but I’m confident they make it up through repeat purchases, upsells, and customer lifetime value, considering their customer lifetime could be as long as 3 years.
I wouldn’t do anything differently here 👍
Key takeaway: make sure your remarketing strategy accounts for multi-touchpoint customer journeys and your customer lifetime value.
Onto their media mix, that plays an important role in a successful remarketing strategy.
Lesson 5: Maintain a healthy mix of videos and statics on Meta
Over the last 2 years, video has been the go-to ad format for most advertisers.
Well, static ads are having a comeback and brands like Les Mills show that they should have a place in your media mix.
Our tests showed that both statics and videos can perform well, depending on the campaign and stage of the funnel.
Just like Les Mills, for best results, I’d recommend putting them into MOF or remarketing campaigns (while also maintaining a healthy mix of videos).
Here’s what I’d do differently: Interestingly, there isn’t much testing going on, be it net-new or iterative. Even if Les Mills’ marketing team is restricted by corporate policy on net-new testing, I’d still go for iterative testing of the BAU ads – testing copy, thumbnails, thumbstop % improvement, landing pages, etc.
Key takeaway: make sure to introduce static ads into your media mix and test their effectiveness across different funnel stages.
Now for some bite-sized takeaways.
Bite-sized learnings:
- The brand uses both short (6 seconds) and medium-length (15 seconds) video ads almost exclusively, rarely producing content exceeding the 15-second mark. This is in line with Google’s and Meta’s recommendations.
- The absolute majority of Les Mills’ Meta ads are in both 9:16 and 1:1 dimensions. We’ve also recently decided to focus on these two dimensions for our clients, as their placements have consistently produced better results (and we’ve stopped trusting Meta’s AI to do the resizing for us).
- Most of the video content is cinematic and not native-looking. This is surprising as the brand is no stranger to native-looking content as seen across their TikTok ad library. Underperformance? Production issues? 🤷
Conclusion
Taking a closer look at Les Mills’ ad approach, it’s easy to see how they’ve built a following of over 6 million users — they’ve nailed the fundamentals.
Here’s a recap of the 5 key advertising lessons we learned from Les Mills:
- Use proven copywriting formulas to keep your messaging clear and effective.
- Reusing ads across channels is okay, but channel-specific approaches are likely to improve your results.
- Don’t skip brand awareness or risk running out of new users to target. Especially true for limited and saturated markets, and higher budgets.
- Don’t remind once — remind many times, and make sure your remarketing strategy accounts for your customer journeys and lifetime value.
- Maintain a mix of static and video ads, but make sure to test their effectiveness across different stages of the funnel.
Is there anything else? Did you notice something I didn’t? Let me know!
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