Virgin Active lifts the bar with a geotargeted, traffic-driving campaign

The Brief:

Virgin Active’s new global brand positioning “Where Wellness Gets Real” pitches the brand as the authentic alternative to fake wellness trends. With a message that challenges the audience to “leave the cult, join the club,” Virgin Active chose Spotify as the perfect platform to get this message out to health-conscious 25-65 year-olds.

To get the conversions they wanted, the message would need to hit home with those tired of the “toxicity” of the wellness industry—assuring them that there’s one health brand they can really trust.

The Solution:

Virgin Active had one goal in mind: to drive traffic to their website in order to convert Spotify users into gym members. So, the brand opted for the CTR-optimized clicks objective when setting up their campaign in Spotify Ads Manager, and selected Automatic Placement in order to distribute their video ads across music and podcast inventory, to be delivered at or near to key gym locations. Additionally, Virgin Active implemented the Spotify pixel directly within Ads Manager—allowing them to track the performance of their video ads and gather insightful data on user interactions within the Spotify app.

It was also vital that the video creative resonated with its audience. To deliver on that objective, Virgin Active repurposed a dazzling, Kubrick-inspired video that contrasted a dystopian, full-colour montage of fake wellness solutions with the black-and-white reality of hitting the gym with Virgin Active for genuine results.

The Impact:

The results of Virgin Active’s campaign proved that the brand had been on the right track with its video-first approach. The ads clearly made an impact on its target audience, delivering a click-through-rate (CTR) of 1.77% from just over 7.5M impressions—directly resulting in 461 gym sign-ups. The campaign also proved to be very cost-effective, tracking an average cost-per-click (CPC) of £0.29.

The Takeaway:

Virgin Active’s campaign showed how advertising on Spotify Ads Manager can be no pain, and all gain. Not only was the brand able to effectively target and reach its audience, and therefore raise awareness of its health and wellness clubs—it also succeeded in its number one objective: driving traffic to its website, and converting visitors into gym members through its highly engaging video ads. Further, by implementing the Spotify Pixel, they could easily measure success within the platform, and report on metrics relevant to their business goals.

Spotify Ads Manager provides self-serve advertisers with a means to set up and run their own campaigns with ease, control their targeting and ad spend, and monitor performance in real time. And Virgin Active proved how such campaigns can lead to full-funnel results.