There is an old advertising maxim, usually attributed to someone who sold soap in the 1950s, that people do not buy products so much as they buy better versions of themselves. SoulCycle, the indoor cycling chain that once commanded thirty-four-dollar class fees and waiting lists that rivaled those for downtown restaurant reservations, understood this principle perhaps too well.

The company, which opened its first studio in Manhattan in 2006 and was acquired by Equinox Holdings in 2011, never really sold exercise. Its tagline — "Take your journey. Change your body. Find your soul" — was, as one observer noted, a self-transformation pitch with a stationary bicycle attached to it. Julie Rice, a co-founder, put the matter plainly in later interviews: riders came for connection, not cardiovascular improvement. A researcher at Harvard Divinity School found that some customers were bringing questions to their instructors that they had once reserved for clergy.

(This is not, it should be said, a typical finding in the fitness industry.)

The loyalty that such positioning engenders is considerable, but it is also brittle. In 2019, Stephen Ross, the chairman of Equinox Holdings, hosted a fund-raiser for President Trump. Riders who had constructed an identity around the brand's message of inclusion did not merely grumble; they departed. Weekly attendance fell 7.5 percent within a week, according to internal data. The brand lost nearly 13 percent of its domestic customer base the following month.

Marketers sometimes speak of brand loyalty as though it were loyalty to a product. It is more accurately described as loyalty to a self-image that the product permits one to maintain. When a brand's actions conflict with that self-image, the relationship does not bend.

Peloton has been blamed for SoulCycle's subsequent difficulties, as has the pandemic, as has a broader shift toward Pilates. The numbers support the last explanation: Pilates participation has grown nearly 40 percent over five years, while cycling fitness has declined by a third, according to industry data.

But the fundraiser came first, and the riders who left did not leave for another bike.

Original story published in Fast Company: "SoulCycle had a cult following. Then, one decision changed everything"