Not in a way that makes anyone, including the target audience, want to actually buy the product/service. If anything, the ad damaged the brand by inadvertently associating it with negative and creepy things.
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It’s only anecdotal, but my wife is a former spinning devotee who recently lost 50 lbs and was hinting at maybe getting a Peloton to help maintain her fitness. Then she saw this ad. Now she’s talking about a rowing machine.
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If there’s anywhere I turn for realistic narratives, it’s advertising.
We already had as we shopped Peleton over the fall.
Fixed that for you!
It draws to mind laws that say you can’t take selfies with your ballot in an election. People think, “Oh that’s dumb” but the law is there to protect people from employers or family members who might say, “You take a photo to prove to me you voted the way I want, or else.” It’s super creepy.
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I’m still having trouble seeing what the big deal is. Some attractive guy buys his attractive wife a gift she is excited about. She takes selfies which is pretty much par-for-the-course on an hourly basis for that demographic. While doing so she shows off some of the features since this is, after all, an AD. She makes a cute video to thank him.
I’ve seen more sexist ads for beer and jewelry but I guess they are held to lower standards before people stop buying High Life and DeBeers because of an ad?
Never heard of Peloton before, but (as a 4-season biker) it made me curious so I checked out their site. Guess the ad worked 
If I had more disposable income I might think about it, but I’d rather buy winter gear and bike outside year round. Treadmills, rowing machines, etc I suppose are good for climates where it would be unsafe to go outside (i.e. South in the summer). But otherwise they remind me of this:
I can’t believe people are calling this the sexiest ad
it’s not even close
also, if you think actors are people who aren’t acting, you’re half right, and you should be banned from watching fiction
E: this commercial has worked better than the Peloton people could have ever dreamed. It’s the War on Christmas for the other side
Male privilege is a hell of a drug.
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Anna Gunn (who played Skylar White on Breaking Bad) has spoken about this in interviews as well. She received tons of hate mail and actual death threats because a character she played “ruined the fun” of the bad boy main character. Where do you even begin unpacking all the things wrong with someone who would do that? Leaving aside that those people completely missed the point of Walter’s character arc.
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I’m trying to determine who needs a /s more
“Hey, Walt. You’ve turned from a mild mannered chemistry teacher into someone that won’t tell their family they have late stage lung cancer, have become a drug manufacturer, killed at least one person, and it’s not even the end of the first episode. But I guess I’m the nagging harpy because I am sitting here at home, pregnant, trying to figure out how to make ends meet and may have a problem with all of this. But, hey, what the hell, you have your fun.”
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I dunno. I think a lot of criticism for this ad is due to extra baggage piled on by the viewer. While I agree that it was kind of odd how she seemed worried vs excited at first, it doesn’t make your product appealing. But upon reflecting on it later, I do think it shows how a lot of people feel about exercise (including myself). They have trepidation about starting something new because they fear it will be too hard, they will fail, or other reasons and are full of self doubt. It isn’t that they don’t WANT to do it. But finding the inner strength to pull it off isn’t always there. The commercial isn’t for the hard core exerciser thrilled to get up and go for a 6am run, but for the person wanting to exercise more and intimidated to do so.
The commercial is a recap of her experience where at the end she is saying how much the Peleton has changed her life for better and thanking her husband for the gift. Of course this is advertising tugging on emotions to make a purchase based on them. It is supposed to making you think, “I could do that too! I should buy this!”
The criticism I’ve seen seems to be from adding extra narrative to the story that isn’t necessarily there. That her husband got it for her so she wouldn’t get fat, or whatever. The narrative could have been that she had repeatedly expressed interest in exercising more, even suffering from depression or something where he doctor suggested exercise with other treatments may help her. Neither of those stories are explicitly said to be true, but either one could be, based on what we saw. Though yes, we should acknowledge that fat shaming and the pressures to look good in our society, especially for women, is total bullshit. But I don’t think this add implies she is under added pressure from her husband and is doing this against her will. I suppose it depends partly one ones’ outlook (half full/half empty sort of thing).
Also a reminder weight isn’t the only factor in health. I am near my “correct” weight, but know I would benefit if I exercised more. It is one thing I’d really like to work on for various reasons. But through self sabotage repeatedly failing at it. At least I have the excuse of having physical limitations, but they are just that, excuses.
YMMV
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No one should send an actress hate mail but her character wasn’t the best person.
recall the series opens with her giving her husband a bday… handjob… and listing off chores to do. Not very loving. Later on rather than take the kids and herself into witness protection she cheats on Walt. And she smokes repeatedly while pregnant.
She’s a great actress who plays a complex role, but let’s not pretend thinking Skylar is a bad wife is a sexist trope. There are a lot of reasons other than her valid desire to not want her husband to be a drug kingpin that make her a bad person.
Not nearly as bad as Walt, I’m not going to both sides it. But she’s no saint.
All that being said good tv is not black and white, and I loved her exploration of how a coerced and abused spouse responds
folks it really is time to blow up your TV’s. the whole fucking world is coming unglued and there is an arguement over a fucking TV commercial? WTF
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There’s a lot to unpack here.
The concessional hand job was a great scene because it showed how much the spark had gone from their marriage. It happens. There’s a lot we didn’t know about them at this point since this was the first episode so it’s hard to judge much about that. And a list of errands from your very pregnant wife? The horror. But I guess it makes her a bad wife because she needs help around the house and gave her husband a low effort hand job (that he didn’t seem particularly interested in anyway).
(This is all literally episode one, everything else is spoilered since its later in the series)
Yes, she smoked while pregnant - which was a completely irresponsible thing to do and she later said how shitty she felt doing it. But like that, and cheating on Walt with Ted she was lashing out at Walt, because, you know, he had spent the last season lying to her about pretty much everything and putting their entire family in grave danger. So, it’s not like that was a spontaneous thing.
Would witness protection be a wise thing? Yes. And as I recall this was even floated, but as I also recall it was Saul Goodman that notes how this would have destroyed her DEA brother in law’s career so she had that motivation to not want to also wreck the lives of her extended family.
It’s not like Skyler White didn’t make plenty of bad decisions, but I would argue she did the best she could to try to cope with an untenable situation that was not of her own making on the hope that Walt would die of cancer before things got too out of control.
Of course it didn’t end up that way.
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I might be misremembering but wasn’t that literally during sex? I agree spark can leave but sometimes doing nothing is nicer than making someone wanting to be told “.I’m glad you were born” feel unwanted
Your spoiler comments raise good points
Again I’m not saying she’s evil, a terrible person just… a below average wife who makes some really poor choices. I think a lot of people recognized that in their own lives and lashed out in completely inappropriate ways.
Good art should provoke thought/feeling but harassing the actress is unacceptable
Also I’ll throw in here: it’s weird skylar got so much hate … but not klepto Marie, who while kinder to her husband imo also acts out in totally weird and inappropriate ways.
I think if you hate skylar and never even think to say Marie has some serious issues it says a lot
I have to agree. My wife wants an exercise bike. If I gave her one, and she finished up not liking it, would I be a bad person?
She doesn’t say “for the better,” though. It’s a series of shots of her looking miserable, followed by her saying “I didn’t realize how much this would change me” (she does say Thank You, though). Change isn’t always good.
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Goodness, yes. Skyler was forced into an impossible situation by a secretly criminal husband. Marie had serious (and unexplored) issues, and her kleptomania was hinted early on to be a long occurring thing. She even literally tried to steal Holly.
That said, I cut her a lot of slack for lashing out after Hank got shot as she was in a really bad place. Hank was very much “fuck everything” in his frustration about being made an invalid and was taking it all out on Marie. That obviously took a huge toll on her.
Let’s not forget Hank had psychological issues of his own.
I guess the takeaway here is Breaking Bad is an amazing show with complex characters.
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I think there’s a lot of projecting stuff into the ad that isn’t really there. Which was funny when humor was the purpose, but I don’t see how anyone can really think this ad is nefarious (more so than any other ad that ultimately coerces you to spend money) aside from being a bit corny.
For starters, Peloton is not marketing its product as a fitness bike, but as part of a lifestyle brand or community. If you know any zealous Peloton users or spinners in general, you know the community aspect is a big deal (Peloton has kinda been described as “cult-like”, even). So I think this ad, for its other fault, tells that story effectively:
- The transformation the woman experiences is not in her physical appearance. As others have noted, the actress playing the wife is pretty fit at the start and end of the ad; there’s no change to her physical appearance because of the product because that is not what Peloton is marketing. The actress chosen for the ad is effective for the actual purpose of the ad, not the made-up purpose the people are projecting onto it, that the husband is an abuser who who thinks his wife is fat.
- By the end of the ad, the wife experiences a change in her self-confidence, motivation and sense of belonging to a community, this is what Peloton is marketing. This is illustrated effectively in several scene choices: the wife’s excited (but nervous) first ride, congratulating herself for riding 5 days in a row and getting up early, “they said my name!” These scenes are corny and certainly have other weird implications, but they do clearly illustrate other benefits besides getting skinny. There are no scenes of the woman looking in the mirror, trying on bikinis, or wrapping measuring tape around her hips.
- Depicting the new Peloton owner as being “nervous, but excited” at the start (then gaining confidence over time) is an effective way to market the product to people who don’t already own it as it shows “anyone can do it”.
So I think it’s fun to intentionally misinterpret things to make the ad seem creepier than it is; but I think we have to acknowledge we’re intentionally doing that. Ironically, the projection has inflated the importance of the husband in the ad and kinda made it all about him.
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