Green Gains: How Fitness Marketing Intersects with Cannabis and Wellness CPG

When it comes to gains, the fitness industry is bulking up even harder than the consumers who are shelling out big bucks for gym memberships, group classes, athleisure fashions, supplements and more. 

The global health and fitness club market and sports nutrition markets are each estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5% between 2022 and 2030. Meanwhile, the global sports athleisure sector is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.3% over the next decade. Each is worth billions on its own, with room to grow. And that’s not counting brands that see crossover potential for marketing and PR activations. 

There is an increasing amount of overlap between the wellness industry, the fitness industry and the cannabis industry. It makes sense—of course fitness enthusiasts who are motivated to improve their health and appearance might also be interested in wellness CPG products oriented around optimizing nutrition, mental acuity and longevity. 

Cannabis and Fitness Marketing

As for cannabis, scientific studies are now catching up to a body of anecdata that suggests a puff of weed or popping an edible can provide a shortcut to ideal flow states and “runners highs,” as well as improved workout recovery. While the results are admittedly still ambiguous, researchers’ findings do support the hypothesis that cannabis consumers who work out are inclined to combine their hobbies.

Indeed, a 2019 study in Frontiers in Public Health found that of 600 adult cannabis consumers surveyed, “70% said it increased enjoyment of exercise, 78% said it boosted recovery, and 52% said it heightened motivation.” More recently, a 2023 study in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research found that “acute cannabis use may be associated with a more positive exercise experience among regular cannabis users.”

Brands are increasingly hip to consumers’ trip into fitness pursuits, bringing new product offerings, brand collaborations and activations to market at the intersection of weed, wellness and workouts. Classes like Bend and Blaze and Ganja Yoga use a pre-asana smoke sesh to make mindfulness more accessible. CBD salves and THC topicals touted for post-workout muscle recovery can be found everywhere from private spas to dispensary shelves. 

Retailers like New York dispensary Housing Works Cannabis Co. have teamed up with fitness brands like SaltDrop on special events—namely the Saltburn series that blends cannabis education with a weekly 45-minute workout class and discounted fitness memberships. Housing Works also offered the High Miles Running Club throughout the summer of 2024, featuring a group run followed by a curated selection of cannabis products to facilitate workout recovery. The first run of the season included a reading by Josiah Hesse from his book Runner’s High, which examines how elite athletes and weekend warriors alike have long used cannabis to fuel their performance.

As Hesse’s book makes clear, blending weed and workouts is nothing new. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tommy Chong used to meet up for marijuana-infused Muscle Beach workouts back in the day. But the way these experiences are marketed is certainly historic in the context of ongoing federal prohibition and decades of propaganda that cannabis is detrimental to both consumer and community health. 

A Brief History of Fitness Marketing

Although the idea of physical conditioning and calisthenics are as old as the Olympics, the idea of branded workouts and marketable fitness destinations as we know them is fairly recent. 

Indeed, much of modern fitness culture emerged from the same post-war economic conditions as the natural products and health foods sectors. American and European interest in health and wellness practices like yoga and qigong emerged from the same interest in non-Western cultures as the mid-century popularity of macrobiotic diets and vegetarianism.

The first Pilates studio opened in 1926, featuring a workout regimen inventor Joseph Pilates developed while imprisoned in a British internment camp during World War I. The first Barre studio opened in Manchester, England, in 1959. 

While the first yoga studio in the United States was founded by Indra Devi in Hollywood in 1948, the practice didn’t fully take off until the 1960s. The Kripalu Yoga Fellowship opened in Pennsylvania in 1966 and, a few years later, Black Panther activists like Angela Davis and Ericka Huggins began promoting yoga and meditation as tools of self-care and resistance that they themselves had used to cope with incarceration.

Also in 1969, two different housewives on opposite sides of the country each independently developed a workout class that could easily be performed at home. Judi Sheppard Missett invented Jazzercise while her husband was stationed at a San Diego military base, completely unaware that in Puerto Rico, former dancer Jacki Sorensen was turning fellow Air Force wives on to step aerobics for the first time. 

Just over 30 years later, a new approach to gym workouts called CrossFit was rapidly popularized in law enforcement communities, much as dance-based workouts had caught on with military wives by word of mouth decades earlier. Today, the CrossFit model is popular not only with cops and firefighters but has also spread to sobriety circles through dedicated recovery support groups like The Phoenix.

Fitness Marketing, Consumer Segmentation and Intersectional Identities

These days, group workout class brand names have become shorthand for key consumer segments. On platforms like TikTok, for example, terms like “Pilates Girl” and “Pilates Princess” have become metonyms for a certain type of affluent, conventionally attractive femme white woman—one who might tote a Stanley Cup to her workout and casually wear Lululemon brand athleisure wear to natural grocery stores like Erewhan in her downtime. 

Fitness Marketing for Women

TikTok has also popularized terms like “shy girl workouts,” “healthy girl habits” and “muscle mommies,” all of which speak to the increasing presence of women in public workout spaces like weight rooms that have historically been male-dominated. Not only are consumers self-segmenting as they develop new terminology to describe their evolving relationship to health and wellness, they’re also generating marketing trends along the way. 

As Madi Shively noted in The Slate: “Young western women do not spend money to experience, but rather to embody. Anything that plays into this idealization of fitness will be bought, and surely thereafter you will leap into the newfound identity of a ‘gym girl.’”

Fitness Marketing for Men

These trends aren’t limited to female consumers, either. For every woman in her “fitness era,” there’s a “gym bro” or “alpha male” for whom masculinity and the aesthetics and performance of wellness are closely intertwined. 

From the decades-old “do you even lift” meme that emerged from online bodybuilding forums to trends like “biohacking” and carnivore influencers like the “Liver King,” the pursuit of the ideal male body has become just as marketable an endeavor as its female counterpart.

There is also considerable overlap between the marketability of fitness brands and products and that of health and wellness products designed to support those efforts. In fact, the expected CAGR for functional beverages is 6.5% and 8% for protein supplements between 2023 and 2030. Plant-based meat substitutes are expected to grow at just shy of a whopping 25% in the same period. For consumers whose sense of self is entwined with their fitness goals, this identification could drive other deeply personal buying decisions too. 

Fitness Marketing Strategies for Wellness CPG, Natural Products and Beyond

So, how can brands tap into this potent synergy between fitness, cannabis and natural products? First off, it’s important to understand the why behind a target consumer segment’s goals and identifications. A brand message map can help drill down into the unique set of interests, concerns and aspirations that dictate why consumers are loyal to some brands and quickly forget others. 

Investing in a brand’s target audience this way is one of the best avenues to maximizing marketing budget ROI. Similarly, digging deep into the brand’s mission, vision and values is imperative for purpose-driven brands—those businesses that share consumers' deeply held beliefs and exist to drive change as well as profits.

Additionally, a PR and marketing strategy should leverage earned media like third-party testimonials and social proof for that word-of-mouth credibility that helped fitness brands like Jazzercise and CrossFit grow from niche to phenomenon. The power of first-hand recommendations is one reason that influencer marketing has become so effective in cannabis, natural products, wellness CPG and fitness is because of the deeply personal nature of these purchases.

Fitness Marketing and Consumer Education

Last but not least, leaning into consumer education through blogging, case studies, white papers and gated content is a fantastic way to showcase your fitness brand’s key differentiators, claim competitive market white space and share credible information about your brand’s functional, emotional and intellectual brand equities.

Marketing automation tools like audience-segmented emails can also be utilized to create echo strategies, increasing the reach and lifespan of those key pieces of content marketing as well as media hits earned through proactive media outreach. 

Wondering what to look for in a wellness products marketing partner? Grasslands is a Journalism-Minded Agency™ with a proven process rooted in deep understanding of what both brands and the reporters who tell their stories need to connect with diverse audiences. ‍The Grasslands team is always ready to talk through your brand’s unique needs and pain points to find a custom solution.

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