There’s just so much wrong here.
Peloton’s new holiday commercial called “The Gift That Gives Back” was not well received by most. In the advertisement for the exercise equipment brand, a man gifts his wife a Peloton stationary bike for Christmas, to which she exclaims over-enthusiastically, “A Peloton!” The rest of the commercial shows the woman documenting what seems like every god damn time she uses the bike over the course of a year, which is a lot of filming, considering that it is implied she works out almost everyday. Her reason for capturing her fitness journey on tape is to ultimately show her husband how much the gift changed her life.
The issues people seem to have with this commercial are, well, everything. To start, the couple are very young, fit, and wealthy, so the inspirational angle kind of gets diluted by these factors. They’re able to afford the expensive bike while many couples their age absolutely couldn’t, which makes it hard to feel inspired by this woman’s fitness lifestyle because it’s so unrealistic for most. The woman also doesn’t physically change at all during her year of working out, not to mention she started off the year already looking like she works out. The way the bike is supposed to have changed her life isn’t made clear or evident in the story. If the intention was just to show how maintaining to a dedicated fitness lifestyle can transform your life, it doesn’t feel genuine or well executed at all. The Twitterverse of course shared their two cents on the commercial, and no one could seem to find anything good to say.
