• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, January 16, 2012

CrossFit, the largely grassroots-fueled fitness trend, is getting its first major marketing injection from its partnership with Reebok, with a new TV campaign that kicked off during the weekend’s football playoffs.

Themed “The Sport of Fitness Has Arrived,” the McGarryBowen spot shows off a helicopter-supported shipping container hovering over cities like Moscow, Seoul and Barcelona. Once it lands, it opens to reveal the CrossFit box in action: A frenzy of men and women weight-lifting, jumping rope, swinging kettle bells and pumping out pull-ups and handstand push-ups.

The fast-growing CrossFit, a strength and conditioning program that started as cult fitness phenomenon in Santa Cruz, California, has been fueled mostly by the Internet and social media, and claims to be one of the fastest-growing fitness movements in the world. Reebok, which first partnered with the sport in 2010, describes it as “a sport that is about community, competition and camaraderie -- and delivers amazing results.”

“CrossFit’s growth is certainly a trend, and with marketing dollars from Reebok, is certain to impact the industry and the consumer at least in the near term,” says Neal I. Pire, president of Inspire Training Systems in Northern New Jersey and a fellow for the American College of Sports Medicine. “The phenomenon is due to the focus on performance-based training with a unique emphasis on achieving “your personal best.” The fact that it also has a social component, since CrossFit participants function in many ways as a “team,” drives participants enthusiastically to achieve more.”

But he thinks Reebok may also have a tough sell taking CrossFit more into the mainstream: Just because it’s been long beloved by cops, firefighters and the military, he says, doesn’t mean it will appeal to the general sneaker-buying public. “It’s been very popular with elite athletes, who have that push-the-envelope mentality, and brag, for example, about meeting Pukie the Clown, meaning they train so hard they vomit. They post photos of their shins, bloodied from missing a box jump. When passed along to a mere mortal, that can have some deleterious effects.”

In addition to the TV spot, which broke during the Giants/Packers game, Reebok says ads are running in print, digital and OOH media, and plans call for a YouTube takeover and guerrilla marketing. “Reebok will bring shipping containers, which serve as mobile CrossFit gyms complete with equipment for a 15-person WOD (Workout of the Day), to city centers around the world, encouraging people to experience “The Sport of Fitness” for the first time,” the Canton, Mass.-based Reebok says in its release.

Some executions will feature star athletes who are also CrossFitters, including NFL stars Chad Ochocinco and Roddy White, MLB All-Star pitcher Justin Verlander, NBA star John Wall, and F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, as well as CrossFit champs.

CrossFit says there are some 3,000 CrossFit affiliates around the world. Reebok currently operates one at its headquarters, which it says is used by 400 employees per week. Overall, it boasts that 1,000 of its employees are CrossFitters; 100 are said to have completed preliminary training as instructors.

Sales for Reebok, which is owned by Adidas, fell 3.7% in the third quarter to €564 million Euros, from €585 million.   Excluding currency fluctuations, sales rose 2.2%. For the first nine months of 2011, Reebok sales gained 9%.