Nike Understands Just How Lazy We Feel Watching Other People Work Out

Impact

Nike gets you.

Nike gets that you like working out and that you aspire to zip on that hoodie, pull on those leggings, get out there and live your best life. But Nike also gets that sometimes we can feel bitter and intimidated by the people who seem to be killing it every day at the gym (or on Instagram). 

So in a new savvy marketing move, Nike created an original "web series" called Margot vs. Lily, which can be found on Nike Women's YouTube channel. The series is scripted and directed by legit professionals, as Well + Good reported, and debuted online Monday after a splashy rollout event in New York City.

The eight-part series centers on two adopted sisters, Lily and Margot. The ultimate 21st-century female fitness enthusiast, Lily has her own YouTube channel called LilyNinja Fitness (which Nike has cleverly turned into real-life videos). 

Margot, on the other hand, is the lazy girl in all of us — she's not against fitness per se, but she's not the least bit obsessed, nor even that motivated, loves a good nap and is just a tad intimidated by the whole workout culture.

NikeWomen/YouTube

It's a clever approach for Nike, and not only because the videos have a Broad City-but-twee-er vibe that fits seamlessly into the rest of our YouTube routines these days. 

With the videos, Nike is shifting the focus from hardcore athletics (how many Nike ads show a buff, perspiring woman sprinting up a set of bleachers?) and instead is going full-on lifestyle. It's bringing the clothes to life by painting a picture not only of its fittest, most intense exercising fans, but of the rest of us — acknowledging, basically, that plenty of us are Margots who wear our Tech Fleece zip-ups to take a nap on the couch. 

The series is an extended Nike ad that simultaneously taps into our social media-fueled, ClassPass-driven exercise obsessions with our (arguably stronger) athleisure-clad preference for being just a little lazy.

NikeWomen/YouTube
NikeWomen/YouTube
NikeWomen/YouTube

For what it's worth, Nike seems to have nailed it. Underneath the first YouTube episode, one commenter wrote, "Am Lily, minus the exercise. I should probably exercise."

Check out the first episode — and its accompanying LilyNinja Fitness workout video — on YouTube.

h/t Well + Good