Digital Storytelling Portfolio Sierra B. Talbert

Introduction

Company Overview

Peloton is a fitness company that sells top of the line stationary bikes and treadmills designed to be utilized along with their in home fitness courses. These courses are live streamed and led by certified fitness instructors. Some of the courses provided includes cycling, yoga, running, strength training and more. Peloton Jr. is an extension of Peloton where in home fitness courses are offered for both children ages 3-13 and their families. This subcategory offers interactive games, adventures classes designed to get your kids moving. There is also a meditation feature that can be used solely for kids or for the entire family.

Audience Profile

Demographics:

Customers: Parents/guardians of young children (ages 21-45 years old) Consumers/users: Children (ages 3-13 years old) Gender: All genders (mainly moms/female guardians) Household Income: $75,000+ annual income (middle-upper class families) Education Level: College Degree or Higher

Psychographics:

Values: Health & wellness, fitness & discipline, family fitness/bonding activities, convenience & technology Lifestyle: Busy schedules, fitness interest, healthy living, youth wellness, tech savvy Motivations: Encouraging engaging youth fitness, positive & interactive screen time, strength and confidence building

Geographic Information:

United States, Puerto Pico, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia & Germany

Campaign Objective and Timeline

Phase 1 (Months 1-2): Digital Press Release is publicized and highlights the release date of the new subcategory.

Phase 2 (Month 3): The blog is published after the announcement highlighting a story of a mom who would benefit from the new Peloton service.

Phase 3 (Months 4-6): The micro-podcast, social media posts, and longform video script is created to market Peloton Jr.

Digital Press Release

This digital press release is to announce Peloton Jr. to Peloton users/the public. It includes a story of how a mom wanted a fitness program for her children and with the support of others, sent in a petition to Peloton. The company then announced the fulfillment of the request and the release date for the program.

Rationale: I decided to go with a brand story to incorporate Aaker’s (2018) concept of signature stories “clarifying or enhancing the brand vision, customer relationship, organizational values and/or business strategy” (p. 10). The brief story in my press release touched on how a Peloton subscriber and mother of 3 wrote a letter requesting an expansion of Peloton’s services and products to cater to her three young children. I also added how other Peloton moms were in support of the idea and concluded the body of the press release noting how Peloton is granting the wishes of its subscribers. I hope that through my story, audience members will see these four things that also relate with Aaker’s (2018) strategic messaging:

1.) Brand Vision (Aaker, 2018)- Peloton provides convenient fitness options to individuals ages 14 and above. By expanding its audience, it can provide convenient fitness to even more users.

2.) Customer Relationship (Aaker, 2018)- Through noting how Peloton listened to the request of its customers, it shows other audience members that Peloton hears the wants and needs of their subscribers and caters to them This also shows how subscribers can have confidence when it comes to being heard by the organization.

3.) Organization & Its Values (Aaker, 2018) – Peloton’s values include “Believe”, “Bring your best” and “Lift People up” (Peloton, n.d.). Peloton wants their customers to believe in their brand to change their lives (Peloton, n.d.). through Thomas’ request, you can tell that Peloton upholds this value through her confidence in asking for product expansion. Then, Peloton shows the last two values through the putting the “members first” and lifting them up by the way they granted Thomas’ request (Peloton, n.d.).

4.) Present & Future Business Strategy (Aaker, 2018)- Peloton is showing their willingness to grow their future business strategy based off their present strategy by expanding the products their subscribers are requesting.

Peloton focuses its marketing on stories. It is shown in commercials and video ads. I wanted to try and use the same strategic story focused on the customer while utilizing a different plot to focus on the new subcategory.

Blog Post

This blog post highlights the story of a mom longing for a convenient and interactive way to help create healthy habits in the lives of her young children. The mom states that she sent in a request to Peloton for a program like Peloton Jr. and how that request was soon granted by the organization.

Rationale: I really wanted to take Aaker’s idea of consistency within signature stories (especially when brands have multiple) and utilize that as I wrote this blog post. Peloton is built of showing stories of their customers utilizing their products and services by showing how pleased they are with Peloton. I wanted to carry that into my assignments. For the press release, I briefly touched on a mother who sent in a letter to Peloton requesting a child-friendly service. For my blog post, I did the same but added more detail about the mother’s thought process and the family dynamic. Aaker (2018) also discusses the role signature stories play when building a loyal audience base. I feel by showing more personal stories on how families want to instill wellness and fitness into their children at a young age is the first step. While the second step is to always highlight how Peloton listened to the request of many of their subscribers. The idea of family fitness will look different in each family. By utilizing signature stories with varying plots and showing different ways, fitness can fit into a family’s lifestyle will show the inclusiveness of the program. Aaker also talks about how signature stories can frame a subcategory. I want my signature stories to do that, so I keep that in mind when creating them.

Micro-Podcast

This micro-podcast episode highlights the story of a homeschool Peloton mom who purchase Peloton Jr. for her young children to use as their daily fitness regimen and how it has benefited the lives of her children and her family as a whole.

Rationale: For my podcast, I decided to utilize a customer story. I reviewed a few of the MS Teams posts and noticed a theme of adding listener engagement to the podcast episodes shared. So, I decided to implement that into my podcast. I opened the podcast by noting that listeners were asked to send in stories about their Peloton Jr. experiences. I then went on telling one story “picked” from the numerous stories that was sent in. Aaker (2018) noted that “customers value information derived from other customers’ experiences more highly than information from commercial sources” (p. 104). I feel customer stories are the best way for Peloton to connect and engage with their audience. I wanted a story similar to the ones I have already created, but different in terms of the plot and the emotional connection. This story also included a motivational aspect that the previous story or two did not contain.

The idea behind the longform video script is to show how Peloton Jr. families utilize the product to achieve family and children wellness.

Rationale: I decided to continue with the storytelling based on family fitness. I feel like consistency is key so I continued to use the family I included in my planned Instagram post. I carried over the mom’s identity from my podcast. I am not sure if that is a smart marketing move or not. Peers, please give insight on this!! I feel like having a recognizable face/face can create brand associations through the storytelling as Aaker (2018) suggests. For example, Tina Fey and Jennifer Gardner are brand associations, for me at least, for Capital One. It was also easier to use this family again because they had more pictures within adobe. I wanted to include some diversity and add two different families throughout the video layout, but the only other family…or father/daughter duo was of the same race as the family I originally started out with, so I just kept my focus on that one family. Ideally, I would have loved to incorporate more diversity into the video layout. I did slightly change my story telling aspect for this assignment. For the podcast and press release I utilized stories and quotes shared by “actual” customers. For this assignment, I decided to change routes slightly and make it more of a commercial like tone, but still had the family focus through the visuals.

Final Takeaways & Reflection

Overall, this project utilizes a consistent brand & customer storyline that shows how children and their families are using Peloton Jr. to improve wellness and fitness behaviors. Positive feedback from my peers helped encourage that I was on the right track when it came to the creation of each artifact utilized in this portfolio.

This project allowed me to put together various IMC campaign aspects that has allowed me to create a story utilizing the different campaign pieces. Aaker (2018) helped me create an understanding of the importance of digital storytelling and how it can aide in building a loyal audience and a positive brand image. I was also able to utilize storytelling to create artifacts that told a brand story, while utilizing a consistent plot, that showed different time periods of the creation of the new Peloton subcategory. It ultimately led me to see the importance of using storytelling in various IMC materials and campaigns to further enhance a brand's marketing strategies.

References

Aaker, D. (2018). Creating signature stories: Strategic messaging that persuades, energizes, and inspires. New York, NY: Morgan James Publishing. Peloton. (n.d.). Company. Peloton Interactive, Inc. https://www.onepeloton.com/company