Inside Tonal’s cinematic spot, visiting centuries past to promote modern fitness

Tonal, the at-home strength training system, storms into the holiday shopping season with a visual stunner of a spot—from agency Quality Experience (QX) and director Aube Perrie—that uses hallucinations of the past to communicate a modern approach to fitness.

The slow-burn two-minute film visits the Victorian era, where we see people engaged in monotonous exercises—banging anvils, lifting kettlebells, riding penny-farthing bicycles, rowing old boats, swinging battle ropes. An ominous score by Atticus Ross ratchets up the tension.

Halfway through, a crowd begins to gather at one particular house, packing the stairs to a second-floor room, where a woman steps toward a glowing white monolith. A cut to the present day—and a pointed onscreen line—make Tonal’s point about embracing a more modern fitness routine.

Tonal has traditionally done more functional messaging through agencies such as R/GA and Omelet, including celeb spots with the likes of Serena Williams and LeBron James. This new work is designed to forge more of an emotional connection to the affluent target market.

“It’s an opportunity to do a bit of a brand platform reset,” Meg Douglass, VP of marketing at Tonal, told Ad Age. “I don’t know that we’ve done justice to how cool the product is, from an advertising standpoint, from a creative platform standpoint. We wanted something that could live up to what the product actually delivers.”

“It’s a real disruptor for the category,” Ari Weiss, creative chairman at QX, said of the Tonal product. “What it makes you feel, the minute you touch it, is that everything else is an antiquated, brutish type of endeavor ... That gave kind of birth to the strategy and the creative, which is that the future of fitness is here. Everything else is a bit outdated.”

The black-and-white film was shot over three days in Bucharest, Romania. While it’s austere and imposing, it’s also balanced out by a playfulness, said Douglass.

“It has the high-end attention to detail that’s in line with what our audience appreciates, but we’re not taking ourselves too seriously,” she said. “There’s some humor in there, which feels like a personality we can embody. ... We’re not trying to be snobs.”

BTS photos by Bogdan Merlușcă

Weiss said the agency was impressed by the mix of classic and modern in Perrie’s filmmaking, which includes music videos such as Harry Styles’ “Music for a Sushi Restaurant.” He said the Tonal spot harks back to the era of big, eye-catching spots from the likes of Jonathan Glazer and Frank Budgen—with a modern spin.

“We’re not seeing that traditional classic big filmmaking, which is a shame because so many wonderful brands have built their legacy on the backs of great films,” Weiss said. “Great films are as relevant today as ever, if not more so. Film is the No. 1 medium that gets passed around and consumed by audiences today.”

The brand spot is supported by more functional advertising—what Weiss called the “one-two punch of capturing hearts and minds.” The film will air on linear and connected TV, as well as social media, under what Douglass described as a “modest” media spend. There is also an OOH component.

“We need to have our moment during a sales period, with Black Friday coming up, that’s going to be big and loud and crazy,” she said. “When everyone’s eyes are focused on performance marketing, there’s a hole left for a big brand spot. There’s no better way for us to punch up our weight than with a film like this.”

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