Pole Cupid
Short format adverts
Programmes used: Premiere Pro, After Effects
Most fitness brands show up the same way - aspirational bodies, motivational quotes, "new year new you" energy. Altitude could have done the same but I wanted to ask a different question: what if we showed up like a challenger?
A challenger brand doesn't compete on the same terms as the category leader. It finds the gap - the thing everyone else is too safe or too comfortable to do - and owns it. Pole dancing is already a challenger to the fitness industry by nature. It's unexpected, exciting and genuinely fun. Altitude's marketing should reflect that.
The Cupid idea started as an off-hand comment in a brainstorming session but I saw an opportunity for something much larger than a one-off video. It could become a whole world with its own characters, tone, recurring gags, and expanding universe. A mockumentary-style Cupid who rescues people from boring fitness and the status quo by teleporting them straight to an Altitude studio, right at the start of a beginner class.
Absurd, deadpan, and built on a very deliberate strategic foundation.
The character was designed to become a fluent device - something audiences would recognise, anticipate, and share. Not a one-off campaign but a long-term brand asset. Below are three videos from across the series I worked on, each expanding on the world in different ways.
The Choices.
Every part of the campaign was made in-house - I wrote the scripts, directed and filmed on location, and edited the final videos. The intentionally lo-fi production style was chosen to match the mockumentary vibe we were going for, which lives or dies on feeling real. Over-polished content would have killed the tone entirely, we wanted it to feel in-house.
Pole dancing has a reputation for being intimidating - and the last thing we wanted was marketing that made it feel even more out of reach. By leaning into absurdity and self-aware humour, Cupid did something that a serious campaign never could: it made Altitude feel like a place where nobody takes themselves too seriously, and everybody is welcome.