Wall Street Rides Peloton's Stock Higher As Audiences Puzzle Over New Commercial

Peloton Interactive Inc PTON has overcome public derision of its latest ad strategy to trade up 14.6% since the start of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Ahead of the long weekend, the exercise bike maker launched a new commercial in pursuit of Christmas sales, spreading the discomfort of stationary biking beyond the home gym to Americans everywhere.

In the video, a husband gifts his fit influencer wife a Peloton, and she obsessively documents a year of dreaded workouts. At the end, she re-gifts him with a video montage of her journey. The ad seemingly attempted to highlight the highs of indoor cycling, but that wasn’t the takeaway for everyone.

Wait hold on.
The Peloton commercial is a guy giving his wife a bike, and she filmed herself using the bike (and waking up to use the bike?) and then they watched those videos of her working out as a family on their TV after? What?

— Dan Rubenstein (@DanRubenstein) December 1, 2019

My fave commercial right now is that one where a guy buys his already perfectly fit wife a Peloton for Christmas and she gets revenge by making him watch a compilation video of her using it for a year

— Adam Tod Brown (@adamtodbrown) November 30, 2019

i actually think that the real story of the ad is that she forgot to buy her husband a gift so she made a fake video compilation of all the times she allegedly used the peloton he got her last year

— Erin War on Christmas Ryan (@morninggloria) December 2, 2019

The ad was quickly meme-ified, with some describing it as a real-life Black Mirror intro. But it seemed to do its job: Peloton got a ton of free media out of its confusing, aggravating clip.

“We all need to treasure the things that bring us together as a nation, as a people,” NPR producer Renee Klahr tweeted. “Collectively hating on this Peloton ad is that thing.”

Peloton shares were falling 4.48% to $35.19 in Tuesday's premarket session. 

Related Links:

Peloton Investor On Why Others Should Buy The Stock

Peloton Reports First Sales Beat As A Public Company

Photo courtesy of Peloton.