Do you see what I see?

My gym recently launched a new campaign and I was very surprised when I realized not everyone saw what I saw. I overheard one 40+ person ask a group of peers what they thought of this campaign.  The conversation that ensued caught me off guard.  So being a marketer, I could not resist asking a 30+ group what they thought of the campaign.  What do you see?

The 40+ crowd read the “#I” as a number sign before the number 1. From there they jumped to the idea that the club was saying it is “#1” and builds the success of its clients. The end result, they felt the club was arrogant and self-inflated.

The 30+ crowd immediately knew the “#” was a hashtag and thought the idea that “I (me, myself and I) built this” was inspiring. They all took out their phones and looked at the twitter feed and hashtag.

At NK&A we believe anyone can come up with a creative idea and the only ones that matter are the ones that can be implemented.

While this has the potential to be a very inspiring campaign, the execution hurts the impact.  The fix – simple. What did you see?