• by Fern Siegel , May 24, 2022

Crunch Fitness tapped Familiar Creatures as its new creative agency of record, building on its integrated campaign, “Crunch Mode,” launched during the pandemic, which extends its “no judgments” tag.

During Q1, Crunch experienced a 28% increase in leads and a 6% increase in memberships, compared to Q4 of 2021 and showed double-digit jumps in year-over-year membership and revenue.

Chad Waetzig, EVP of marketing and branding at Crunch, credited the agency with helping to reintroduce consumers to the gym with “entertaining, memorable, and effective work highlighting the fun, value, and variety we bring to fitness.” New TV and radio spots are expected in 2022 and 2023.

Familiar Creatures launched in 2018 as advertising's first “Fractional AOR,” pushing creative muscle without higher fees for “clients with limited budgets who still want to do killer stuff,” said Justin Bajan, FC's co-founder.

The agency's current client roster includes Duke's Mayo, CapCenter, WNRN and CapitalOne.

Since 2017, Crunch has worked with Strawberry Frog, Code and Theory, and most recently The Sasha Group, a VaynerMedia subsidiary — all on a project basis. Familiar Creatures is their first AOR in over five years. Crunch liked the project work the agency did in 2021 and decided to expand their relationship.