Chloe Ting’s 2-Week Shred is Genius (in Getting Views for Less Work)
Whether the videos are effective is another question
YouTube has plenty of videos with titles like “I tried Chloe Ting’s 2-Week Shred Challenge!” almost entirely by female users who document their progress over the 14 days of the challenge.
With most reporting a modicum of success in losing some pounds and defining certain muscle groups — mostly the stomach area — they are motivating. The most successful videos have the YouTube narrative down pat: relatable struggles at the beginning to do the exercises, a bit of progress, a disappointing challenging day, and then lo and behold an inspiring jump in progress for the last couple days. Look! A firmer belly area! A few pounds off!
If they can do it, you can do it! Imagine what you could do if you completed the challenge! And it’s even free!
So I started the challenge myself, just to see if I could lose a couple pounds after plateauing with intermittent fasting. I already run three days a week and eat healthy, so I figured I need something extra to get rid of those extra pounds. Two weeks of working out every day is indeed a challenge, but not an overwhelming one. Maybe I’d even see a trace of ab definition, something that’s always eluded me.
If Chloe Ting is that popular, something’s working.
Plus, I thought, a new set of workouts every day would help to keep me motivated. Doing the same workouts and running routes gets tedious.
And so I was disappointed when I looked at the video list for the challenge. Every single day includes the same two videos: one that you should do every day to lose weight (according to its title, with no other description), and one for abs. Some days include additional videos, some days have only those two.
The Do This Every Day to Lose Weight (actual title) video has roughly 70 million views. 70 million! Seeing that number shocked me at first until I realized what was going on. If you tell people to do THIS video every day to lose weight, you increase adherence to your brand and your views by god-knows how much. If you make a two-week weight loss routine and use this same video for every single day, you increase its views 12-fold (there are two rest days and that’s assuming everyone who starts the challenge finishes).
Genius.
It was at this point I realized I’m being bamboozled. The workouts aren’t anything unique. It’s the same HIIT set of workouts that you can find in any YouTube fitness expert’s routine. And at 13 minutes, the video is on the slightly uninspiring light side.
But that makes it accessible for beginners without being demotivating to continue. For someone who wants a more intense workout, you could easily find something more effective from Sydney Cummings or FitnessBlender. But hey, lose weight for only 13 minutes of exercise? Sorry, Sydney!
Same with the abs video. Nothing groundbreaking, but short enough to make you say “I can do this every day.”
Clever.
There are a few other workout videos included in the challenge that include core and abs, lower body, and two more ab routines. Clearly, someone producing Chloe’s channel figured out what their core audience is most insecure about.
But that’s six videos in total. Six videos, two of which are repeated daily. That didn’t require a huge amount of effort to create a 14-day plan. But it’s going to rake in huge numbers of views, which in turn solidifies the legitimacy of Chloe’s workouts to anyone who trusts views alone. It’s also going to make her a lot of money for minimal production effort. Her other videos have nowhere near these numbers. She should have thought of this before.
Most videos also encourage you to subscribe to her channel and watch the testimonial videos. Images of young women in halter tops with defined ab regions remind you what you can look like if you become part of this club, if you’re faithful to hitting Repeat on the YouTube viewer.
It’s a marketing gimmick to sell a product that revolutionizes nothing and is questionable in its effectiveness.
Well done.
This is not to say that Chloe Ting is deceiving anyone about HER body. She lifts heavyweights regularly. But that’s the issue. She’s deceiving her audience (primarily teenage girls and young women) about what THEIR bodies can achieve in two weeks with this routine.
All in the name of views upon views upon more views.
Of course you’ll lose a couple pounds by doing exercises every day for two weeks, particularly if they’re challenging to you. You could lose them by simply running in the 25-minute span of the two main videos. But you won’t have a sculpted body and a six-pack! No, and you won’t get them by doing the Chloe Ting 2-Week Shred Challenge either, unless you’re most of the way there already.
But Chloe figured out how to keep you watching anyway. Even this 39-year-old in a male body is going to hit Repeat tomorrow.
Just in case…
