Zwift is a cycling training app you play at home. I was the in-house Lead Writer for four years. As with most startups, we built and flew the plane at the same time.
I helped craft positioning, define strategy, and build the brand voice and narrative.
My role focused on creative storytelling across CRM, broadcast, and digital/IRL activations.
Our efforts established Zwift as the #1 cycling app and broke daily usage records YoY.
During the summer off-season, we reset as team. We aligned on business goals and the creative strategy needed to accomplish them.
Strategic Insight
If you hate what you’re doing, you won’t be doing it for long. But fun? That’s your fuel to continue. Whether it’s scrapbooking or snowboarding or cycling, fun powers performance.
Fun makes you go fast.
Defining Zwift Personas
Working with strategy and based on research, we identified our two primary audiences to market to. We saw overlap in their need for structuring training, and opportunities to cater messaging differently.
Recreational Riders
The cyclist who focuses on fun, fitness, and pushing themselves to be better. They ride 40-60 miles a week, usually squeezed in between work and family. They love to sweat, explore new routes and the burn of a hard workout.
Competitive Riders
The performance driven cyclist always chasing a goal. That could include a race, big event, or getting stronger for club rides. They ride 100-200 miles a week, and serious about structured training. Competition gives them enough reason to push harder.
Narrative Strategy
We tailored messaging to cover the range of product benefits. We leaned into cycling culture to market Zwift, motivate the masses and drive growth.
1 - EXPLORE
Ride in beautiful virtual worlds and escape the mundane.
2 - TRAIN
Get faster and stronger with interval cycling workouts.
3 - COMPETE
Get competitive with the community through gamification, races, and fun events.
And defined our brand personality and way of speaking Zwift.
I led an editorial design team tasked with giving more context and depth into the platform itself. Our big launch spot made a splash, but prospects still didn’t understand how Zwift worked or the reasons to use it. So we made 30+ video outputs to tell those stories. Here’s a few.
Print executions supported the campaign.
