Planet Fitness

Planet Fitness – High School Summer Pass

The Challenge

Teens want to stay active – but getting them to actually show up is another story. Between screen time, social pressure, and gyms that feel designed for adults, the gap between intention and action is wide. Planet Fitness wanted to close that gap with their High School Summer Pass, offering free gym access to 14–19 year olds all summer.

The core issue was simple, teens do not engage with traditional advertising. If it feels like an ad, they skip it. Their attention is fleeting, their BS meter is high, and they’re inundated with digital content every second. Teens lose active attention for ads faster than any other age group, and 56% say they don’t see their lifestyle represented in advertising. The brand needed to meet this audience on their terms, with content that felt native to their world and worth their time.

Planet Fitness and agency partner BarkleyOKRP needed content that wouldn’t be skipped or scrolled past – content teens might actually binge.

The Solution

Cardboard Spaceship partnered with BarkleyOKRP to create “On This Repisode of High School Summer Pass” – a free gym promo disguised as a binge-able teen drama. Instead of creating a campaign about the program, the idea was to turn the program into entertainment.

Rather than traditional advertising, we produced a full 10-episode season of content that parodied popular teen shows like Ginny & Georgia and Outer Banks. But instead of stereotypical teen drama, each “repisode” comedically centered around life in the gym and the key benefits of the High School Summer Pass.

The format included:

• A dramatic season trailer
• 10 scripted episodes released throughout the summer
• A finale that paid off running storylines
• Behind-the-scenes extras
• An AR filter for yearbook-style superlatives

The Results: Built to Perform

“On This Repisode” didn’t just perform – it dominated:

• 3.2% organic engagement rate (vs. 2.45% fitness industry benchmark)
• 15.85% influencer engagement rate (vs. 1.23% benchmark — 14.6 points higher)
• 37.8% teen email open & click rate (vs. 31.25% benchmark)
• Coverage on Good Morning America, USA TODAY, CNN Business, CNBC “Mad Money”
• Significant Gen Z membership growth in Q3

Impact:

• 2,806 earned feature placements
• 78% of participants reported positive change in mood from working out
• The campaign was recognized as a Shorty Awards finalist and delivered massive earned media across national publications.

High School Summer Pass became a binge worthy content series, inspired by the tone and structure of teen streaming shows.

Our Role

Cardboard Spaceship led full-service video production, bringing the episodic vision to life across a scalable content system built for social platforms.

Our scope included, creative collaboration with agency and client, production design for serialized storytelling, multi episode filming optimized for vertical and short form formats, directing performance to capture authentic teen energy, and post production, editing, and finishing across a high volume of deliverables.