Hydrow and Hivestack’s programmatic targeting for luxury fitness

Like banana bread and TikTok, at-home exercise boomed during the pandemic. The challenge now is to maintain this growth. 

Hydrow, the at-home connected rower brand, looked to take advantage of the targeting capabilities of programmatic digital out of home (DOOH) to increase brand awareness and consideration. 

With the home fitness equipment market predicted to continue to grow, Hydrow aimed to position itself as the best choice for those looking for an immersive, full-body workout from home that they'll be able to commit to.

Hydrow partnered with Hivestack, the independent, programmatic, DOOH adtech company, alongside media agency VaynerMedia, to activate the campaign across Great Britain.

The challenge

Hydrow aimed to target consumers in the upper-middle-income bracket and frequent users of Tier 1 fitness facilities across 31 towns and cities in Great Britain. The campaign needed to drive awareness and generate demand for their product from the identified audience, as well as identify and locate potential new audiences.

The solution

Hydrow selected Hivestack’s Demand Side Platform (DSP) to activate its campaign. While it aimed to get coverage in 31 regions, London was the top location due to the high concentration of screens, followed by Birmingham, Newcastle, Reading and Edinburgh – all key locations for Hydrow engagement.

Hivestack’s geo-targeting feature was a key tool for locating screens in optimal environments in these selected regions, such as gyms, billboards and shopping malls. Indexing a substantial audience concentration, the end result was an audience concentration average of 99%. With Hydrow aiming to reach a specific custom audience, these screens were selected to ensure the campaign reached the right people at the right time, maximising its contextual relevance. 

Strategic points of interest (POI) were also identified and activated in order to increase brand awareness and reach potential new audiences, such as high-end gyms, sport clubs and affluent neighbourhoods with large houses (big enough for an at-home connected rower).

Results 

In order to understand the impact of the OOH campaign, Hivestack conducted a Brand Lift study, measuring the effects on those exposed to the campaign versus those who were not. 

The study revealed an increase in all KPIs among exposed audiences. There was a 29% increase in brand awareness, with a further 29% increase in creative interest and a 26% increase in purchase intent, proving the success of the activation.

Ultimately, the campaign exceeded Hydrow’s objectives. It was able to activate its campaign on screens that were contextually relevant for a specific custom audience, in a cost-effective and highly targeted fashion.