Peloton - Shaunta-Maé Member Story

The best Peloton advertising was never really about the product. It was about what people did with it.

The Member Story series was built on a simple belief: that real people, with real struggles, tell more powerful stories than any campaign we could write. The challenge was finding the right stories, ones extraordinary enough to stop you, but honest enough that anyone could find something of themselves in them.

Shaunta-Maé Alexander stopped us in our tracks. Diagnosed with a neurological condition that left her completely paralyzed from the waist down, not once, but twice, she had every reason to give up. Instead, she had an aha moment. "My disability does not disqualify me from my purpose." She started with upper body workouts. Then she found the Bike. Then the Tread. Then, with instructor Tunde Oyeneyin as her guide, she walked. Ran. Lifted weights. Completed races. Things she had been told she would never do again.

The film we made with Shaunta-Maé closes with the quote tattooed on her arm: "The wind will catch her feet, and you will sail." You don't need to have experienced paralysis for that to land. The feeling of defeat, the decision to fight back, the moment you realize you're capable of more than you thought - that's universal. Peloton just happened to be the coach that helped her find it.

The film won the Webby Award People's Choice in Health & Wellness, 2024.