Rebrand Launch for Dane Fitness
Everyone’s Strong Looks Different
Dane Fitness sells and services fitness equipment, and needed brand photography that proved something a catalog shot never could: the team selling the gear actually trains on it. I led creative direction on a campaign built around one idea — shoot every staff member doing the discipline they personally love.
“A fitness equipment brand is only as credible as the people who actually use it.”
I directed the full shoot end-to-end — concept, casting, location styling, and post-production — working with the same photographer from the MoveStrong campaign to keep a consistent, gritty visual language across both brands.
Execution
Rather than product-on-white catalog imagery, the concept put Dane Fitness's own staff in front of the camera — the cyclist, the powerlifter, the sprinter, the sled-pusher — each shot mid-discipline in the training style they know best. Credibility came from range and authenticity, not polish.
Casting pulled directly from Dane Fitness's staff rather than outside talent, with each person directed into the specific movement or equipment they personally train with — a team member on a spin bike, another on the lifting platform, another mid-sprint from the blocks, another pushing a sled. Locations were scouted for texture over polish: exposed brick, weathered concrete, industrial windows, and repurposed warehouse space that reads as a real training environment rather than a studio set. Post-production carried the same high-contrast, desaturated tone as the MoveStrong shoot, unifying both campaigns under one visual identity.
The Outcome
“Customers weren't looking at a stock photo of a stranger. They were looking at the person who'd help them pick the right equipment.”
The campaign gave Dane Fitness a photography library that doubled as a trust signal — proof that the staff recommending and servicing equipment actually uses it, ready to deploy across social, print, and in-store marketing.
