Yahoo Finance OPINION - And Just Like That... Mr Big tanks Peloton shares
First and foremost, a major spoiler alert: stop here if you haven’t watched the long-anticipated Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That (or don’t bother because it’s actually objectively quite terrible).
Rather than any attempt at a real plot, the first episode of And Just Like That seems to be an 45 minute-long exercise in pointing out that it is, in fact, 2021, and among other painfully crass attempts at the show righting its past wrongs and hauling itself into the modern woke world is an unintentionally controversial crowbar moment.
At the end of the first episode, Mr Big (Chris Noth), the on-again-off-again love interest of Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), clips into his Peloton bike for his 1,000th ride. He then hops off the bike, has a heart attack and dies. Because hello, modern!
Not only is Mr Big’s loss a colossal hammer-blow to our collective national spirit, (way to kick us when we’re down), it also had some real-life repercussions. Since the show aired at the end of last week, Peloton’s shares have slumped by more than 16 per cent.
The company did approve SATC’s use of its bikes but said it wasn’t told that they would be the cause of Mr Big’s demise (may he rest in peace).
So on Sunday, in an attempt to resurrect its profits, it released a parody advert, in which Mr Big was brought back to life, with the caption: “And just like that… he’s alive”. Ah, corporate humour. It does beg the question though, why is Peloton so relentlessly bad at its own marketing?
The company scored another own goal in 2019, when its shares slumped after a backlash over its dystopian Christmas advert which showed a conventionally-attractive woman being given an exercise bike for Christmas by her husband. Stunned by his generosity, she then dutifully records her workouts over the following year in a vlog and presents it to him as a thank you for basically suggesting she should lose a few pounds.
And in May of this year, Peloton was forced to withdraw its treadmills after reports of a death and several injuries.
Perhaps in the excitement of potentially getting some much-needed good publicity from SATC, Peloton executives forgot to ask in what context their bikes were going to be used. They have somehow outdone themselves for the worst Peloton ad ever.
Did you watch the Sex and the City reboot? Let us know in the comments below.
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