Virgin Active Australia has launched a new brand campaign challenging the growing pressure of “artificial wellness”, encouraging Australians to step away from algorithm-driven ideals and reconnect with themselves in a more human way.
Developed by independent creative agency MONTOYA, the campaign arrives as Australians reset fitness and wellbeing goals for the year, positioning Virgin Active as an antidote to a wellness category crowded with trends, tech promises and constant comparison.
Rejecting prescribed wellness
The campaign takes aim at the modern obsession with optimisation, highlighting how technology and AI, while promising connection and improvement, can also intensify pressure and disconnection.
Virgin Active reframes wellbeing as something that cannot be filtered, automated or outsourced, instead grounding it in physical effort, shared energy and real human connection.
The work encourages audiences to look inward rather than chase external definitions of what wellness “should” look like.
Tech language, turned inward
Creative headlines across the campaign borrow the language of technology and flip it on its head, with lines such as “Log into yourself”, “Control the only system that matters” and “Unsubscribe from expectation”.
The messaging is designed to remind people that the sense of self often lost in modern life can be rediscovered through movement, presence and community.
Michelle Rolston, head of marketing at Virgin Active Australia, said the campaign reflects the brand’s belief that wellbeing has become overcomplicated.
“Wellness has become crowded with trends and unrealistic promises,” Rolston said.
“This campaign is a reminder that feeling better doesn’t come from optimisation or external pressure, but from reconnecting with your body and the people around you. Virgin Active exists to create spaces and experiences where that can genuinely happen.”
A human-first creative approach
MONTOYA founder Bob Mackintosh said the creative intentionally mirrors the language of the digital world audiences are being encouraged to step back from.
“We deliberately borrowed the language of the world we’re pushing back against and turned it inward,” Mackintosh said. “We’re not asking people to change who they are, it’s about stepping out of the noise and reconnecting with what’s already there.”
The campaign features 15- and six-second video executions running across YouTube and social platforms, supported by a targeted out-of-home rollout. Static and seven-second digital formats will appear across key locations in New South Wales and Victoria.
Credits
Client: Virgin Active Australia
Creative agency: MONTOYA
Production: Sam I Am
Media: Connected Media