Before YouTube was even rolling, Nike had already been beating the Michael Jordan horse for well over a decade. He'd been serious; sweaty; funny. He'd said, "Just do it" a million times....and it was getting trite. The most popular slogan the world had ever seen was becoming so ingrained in the lexicon that it was a cliche. No longer did it inspire; now it was everywhere, watered down to the point of teflon. It wasn't sticky.
So Nike hired a different marketing firm, who came up with this idea: let's go the opposite direction. This commercial, called "It's Not The Shoes," reinvigorated the marketplace by casting Jordan in a role other than lead character. For once, he was the 'straight man.'
Does the commercial show an Air Jordan shoe in a closeup eight times in 31 seconds? Yes. Does "Mars Blackman" say the word, "SHOES!" nine times, mostly in the last five seconds? Yes. But the position: not the shoes.
When Jilly Bigboop visits McFit, what's their sales line? I'll tell you, because it hasn't changed in a decade: "We have lots of machines. More than anyone else." Why machines? The best sales staff will know to try to sink an emotional anchor: "Machines are safe and easy to use." In other words, you won't embarrass yourself by looking like a rookie, or injuring yourself in front of everyone.
In our struggle to sum up CrossFit in a paragraph - or, our Elevator Pitch - we often find it easier to explain what we're NOT: mirrors. Dress codes. No sweating. No mindless drudgery that makes you hate yourself, provides no Bright Spots or objective measurement for progress, puts you in ANOTHER windowless cubicle for SEATED boredom with a side of processed white flour for three hours while you're watching ANOTHER SCREEN and leaning on the handlebars to collect more irrelevant DATA about an ill-perceived notion of fitness....
Sorry, I got carried away. And that's what happens when I try to answer the question, "What's CrossFit?" about half the time.
When Lisbeth does her insightful "Affiliate Spotlight" features on the A-blog, it strikes me how many Affiliate owners provide the same answer to, "What word best sums up your gym culture?" The answer:
COMMUNITY.
CrossFit IS community. It's NOT the gym. It's NOT kettlebells plus Westside plus POSE plus a bunch of crazy acronyms. It's needing no mirrors, because your buddy knows to tell you when your shoulders are too far forward at the start of your clean pull. It's coaching, not easing. It's cheering, not hiding. And it's pride, not a dimly-lit hallway with an overdeveloped weight scale and a hundred pounds of judgment.
Held up against the pasty pale background of GloboGym (now open twenty-four hours!) CrossFit is a bright swath of crimson. Get to know the sales pitch of the anti-fitness, and do the opposite.