Brand Narrative & Creative Strategy Workshop

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Brand Narrative & Creative Strategy Workshop —

Life Time, Inc.
The largest luxury Athletic Country Club and “healthy way of life” company operating in the U.S and Canada.

1.823M

Sales & Net Revenue
1.4M

Individual Members
170+ / 40+

Locations & Major Markets

Athletics
LT Work
LT Living
LT Stay
LT Digital
LifeSpa

Life Time, Inc. (NYSE: LTH) is a luxury fitness and real estate company. They are the largest luxury Athletic Country Club company in the US and Canada. While their origins are in fitness and athletics (brick & mortar + digital), they offer more standalone experiences and services that the primary pillars of the brand. A complete list:

—Athletics
—Co-working - LT Work
—Residences/Hotels - LT Living & Stay
—Digital (app)
—Spa

More services include; childcare and kids sports, athlete development, senior services, chiropractor, PT, and more.
Tagline:
”The Healthy Way of Life Company”
The primary goal of the immersive IRL workshop was brand ideation, narrative development, and design execution, paving the way for a game-changing agency brief for the category.
Equinox is Life Time’s main competitor and has a large footprint across the U.S. At similar price points, Life Time has some clear advantages but the brand needed to tell a more captivating, emotive brand story, and achieve parody in design and messaging.

Duration: 5 days
Location: Life Time’s home market (MN) with follow-up remote sessions

Working closely with the Co-Heads of Brand Creative, a two-phase process and approach for rapid ideation was used.

Due Diligence Phase
—Establish the problem space
—Talk through growth plans, business units, and competitive pricing and brand & marketing
—Define white space to pursue
Creative Ideation Phase
—Initial rapid ideation
—Refine ideation pairing instinct, insight, and research
—Formalize concepts
—Iterate options and edges of the concepts
—Document and socialize
Consulting Creative Director, Lead Workshop Facilitator, Hands-on Design

Ideation + Exploration

Web 🔗

Life Time, Inc.

The workshop outcomes ultimately leaned into the company’s origin and long-term vision; provide everyone with the tools they need to live a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. In essence, longevity.
A narrative framework using ‘Life’ and ‘Time’ a simple, yet powerful conceptual idea, became the new brand narrative. It was the right thing to do for the company and very flexible for the many aspects of the business.
The Framework:
Our life is an accumulation of time; past, current, and future. With a brand rooted in the long game, we can pose some foundational, and provocative questions:

What will you do in your Life Time?
How do you want to spend your time? Where will you go? Etc.

You can do it all, in your Life Time.

Time is a precious and finite resource, can we (and should we) make it meaningful and spend it wisely?
The creative approach for the new brand narrative presents a conceptual view of the future of health, wellness, and course longevity. The long game. It’s an unexpected visual perspective using emotive color, texture, and the beauty of the human pursuit of movement. Color can also visually telegraph a measure of time. This became a compelling foundation to build the brand visuals.
Design Ques:
Color Stories
Visually depict how time moves throughout the day - dawn-to-dusk gradients

Editorial Feel
Serif and sans-serif typography allowing the messaging to have a sophisticated and elevated feel of a magazine.
Photography
Cimenamatic, minimal, future-forward/futurist, and textural. Showing skin, sweat, diversity, fluidity, and beauty of the human body.
This brand work recently launched in January 2024. Credits coming soon.

Insta 🔗

“You played such a crucial role in
reviving Life Time as a brand.”

Those days early in the year were so important to us, and you were there. You were so thoughtful and easy and kind and smart. All the things.

I don’t think we really gave you the gratitude you deserve so thank you x millions.

Co-Head of Brand Creative & Writing

RPReplay_Final1704863902-ezgif.com-resize (1).gif

Adaptive natural sky gradients telegraph time, visually.
Cycle ⏵

NYC Market Launch

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Summer '23 ☀️

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NYC Market Launch ↓ Summer '23 ☀️ ↓

Go for NYC Market Launch

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Go for NYC Market Launch —

Life Time was entering the NYC market for the first time with four unique locations. They needed to make a statement creatively (before the new brand narrative and new creative was developed).
The goal was to build momentum for the brand and location strategy at launch — with the same high caliber of narrative and design to compete amongst many competitors.

Eight distinct narratives and themes were developed with accompanying visuals paving the way for an experiential agency brief.
NYC is arguably the epicenter of fitness in the U.S, and Equinox’s home market, the main competitive offering. While Life Time has an extensive eco-system, our research revealed consumers in this market are exposed to:
—15+ brick & mortar & experiential pop-ups

—6+ home equipment brands

—14+ fitess & wellness apps - brand & celebrity

—Brand advertising by the world’s best fitness and wellness brands
The brand refresh work was in progress and new existential narratives were still being ideated and developed. Pushing forward emotive and provocative messaging felt like the perfect opportunity to test new narratives. Showing some flex, edge, and a little swagger could punch through and get people talking about Life Time amongst Equinox and others.

Design Ques:

Experiential OOTO
Projections as textural billboards with grit across the city.

Bold Narratives
Simply typeset copy to focus on the message.

Wordmark Signatures
Visually communicate more information about the brand - ‘Athletic Country Clubs’ or location.

Color
Mostly Black and White with minimal color in photography & flim.

Photography & Flim
Expressive, movement-focused shots conveying grace and power.