Lots of people join a gym at the beginning of the year, then quit within a few months.
To keep customers coming back, CrossFit chain Brick and agency BBDO New York created a series of custom nesting dolls that illustrate the stages of progress that gymgoers will see if they stick with their fitness plans.
Different version of these "Fit Nesting Dolls" track to different kinds of fitness goals—lose weight, prep for a triathlon—with a computer flash drive containing a workout routine located at the center of each set. All get consecutively thinner without losing much height.
Various artists designed the iterations on the theme. The results are generally cute and diverse—though some of the largest dolls come off as comically unflattering, which also risks seeming mean-spirited.
Made with a 3-D printer and handed out to new signups at Brick, the dolls also served as the centerpiece of social advertising and on-site posters. Layouts showing the succession of dolls side by side offered the clearest and most compelling version of the work.
But most entertaining are the animations at the top of the promotional video above, wherein the dolls sprout arms and pump iron while making appropriately ridiculous faces.
Overall, the idea is clever. And images of nesting dolls with cut abs are also pretty funny, especially in contrast to the traditional, more conservatively clad Russian iteration.
Whether it communicates what Brick wishes it to might be a different question. Nobody wants to spend five months suffering at the gym to end up shaped like an oblong egg, no matter how ripped.
CREDITS
Client: Brick
Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Bianca Guimaraes
Senior Copywriter: Rodrigo Linhares
Senior Art Director: Florian Marquardt
Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe
Executive Producer: Neely Lisk
Lead Integrated Producer: Courtney Fallow
Photographer: Billy Siegrist / Koji Yahagi
Physical Designer/3D Model: Jeian Jeong
Type Designer: Marcelo Righini
Digital Production Company: Visorama Diversões Eletrônicas
Account Manager: Samanta Martins
Stop Motion Artist: Luciano do Amaral
2D Digital Animator: José Bessa
3D Modeling Artist: Elisa Branco
Illustrators: Tiago Vaz, Felipe Blunt, Giorgi Popiashvili, Gustavo Teixeira, Henrique Sanchez, Isabela Andrade Lima, Juarez Rodrigues, Julia Quaresma, Lukas Doraciotto, Luke Bott, Marcel Yunes, Moyl Cledera, Paula Fernandes, Paula Isabelle Souza, Paulo Cesar Correia Lima, Sabine Hegmann, Sajid Wajid Shaikh, Rich Tu, Halil Mete