Did Peloton Pull a Fast One or Have They Learned From a History of PR Blunders?

A lot has been written about the situation already, most of it focusing on the short-term stock price recovery and on how Ryan Reynolds saved the day on a ridiculous and alleged 48-hour timeline. As a brand and comms. professional whose seen his fair share of crisis situations, I’d like to take a deeper dive into the circumstance and strategy of Peloton’s response.

It’s still hard to compute exactly what happened, but it’s safe to say, whether by design or luck, Peloton is coming out of this stronger than they came in and that their crisis response was incredible.

So, how did they do it?

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Meta experience and 10,000 hours of crisis management

Peloton has been here before, at least twice. Once last year when a child tragically died in an accident involving a Peloton treadmill and Peloton was forced to recall their products. The other was a similar situation to now when the infamous #HolidayGate fiasco of 2019 where Twiteratti and Instagram Influencer Squad somewhat subjectively jumped on Peloton for their not great execution of a holiday commercial.

Undoubtedly these experiences helped inform Peloton on how they should respond to the recent scandal. In 2019, the problem was one of perception and hype. It wasn’t really a serious issue but Peloton let it get away from them and then became the butt of the joke.

In the most meta-ey of meta circumstances, it was Reynolds and his Aviation Gin brand who really took advantage of the situation with a parody of the ill-received Peloton spot. I’m not privy to Peloton inside information, but it’s not hard to see that Peloton learned from their mistake and applied the playbook used against them in 2019 to their advantage in 2021. With the inside joke being that they hired Reynolds to help. Smart.

Crisis management 101: separating hype from risk

Botched crisis responses can kill companies. The stakes are serious and the default is to play it safe with the usual “we missed the mark” dribbling and insincere apologies. Which makes Peloton’s cheeky response pretty darn bold.

Or does it? What was missed in all the hype was this was not a true crisis and there was no real risk to Peloton! A fictional character fictionally died in a fictional TV show. It would take some real truth stretching to equate this to “Peloton will kill, don’t buy it.”

But this is exactly how it was initially portrayed. In addition to that, Peloton has built a great brand and product reputation which helped tremendously and allowed them to pull this off.

In my opinion, the real genius in Peloton’s response was taking a beat to assess the risk of the situation. That is the first pillar of ANY crisis response strategy. And from there determining the correct response and what initially was a “crisis” was actually an opportunity and gift horse looking at them. They may have even used a framework like the below to assess their course of action:

As you can see, Peloton landed on the strategic route of Opportunity rather than respond with a defensive statement, or even doing nothing, that would have proven to be the wrong approach based on their past experience. Well played.

Perfect is the enemy of done

The spot itself was “cringe,” as one well-respected industry friend put it but it was more than good enough to get the job done, especially knowing that it was supposedly pulled off in 48 hours. Imagine the approvals and logistics that they had to jump through both internally and externally. The overall report card looks something like this:

• Response: 10/10
• Media and Comms. Results: 10/10
• Spot Quality: 5.5/10
• Business Impact: TBC (see conclusion below)

The point is organizational posture and processes are important in the swiftness of brand response.

The “big” picture

It doesn’t matter if this was a Machiavellian plot to steal mindshare or if it was one of the best marketing and comms. responses in recent memory. Either way, Peloton killed it.

But the impact will be relatively fleeting, even timely as it comes during the crucial holiday-shopping window when outsized sales gains are made against the yearly plan. Peloton now needs to get out of their seat and focus on the real uphill climb ahead.

They’re not in the health and fitness industry—they’re in the consumer-electronics industry, one of the toughest industries around. And with prices of $1,500 and up, they’re in the luxury echelons of it. For Wall Street, hitting Peloton’s numbers is where the biggest impact will be made. More crucially from a consumer perspective it is about finding the right product roadmap and go-to-market strategies to sustain growth and relevance.

How much room for audience growth is there for a product with a lifespan of 10-plus years, now that every CEO, creative director, CMO and marketing manager has one? Do you go right on the adoption curve and sell to their moms and grandads? Do you introduce a “budget” product or gaming changing innovations? Do you go to adjacent audiences like gamers or road cyclists? All of the above?

I’m sure these are things keeping the Peloton team up at night and I’m sure they’re plotting their response … maybe even with the help of Ryan Reynolds.

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