How lululemon taps China’s social fitness boom

What happened “Dazi culture” — loosely, the culture of finding activity-specific companions — is becoming one of the defining social phenomena among young people in China. From meal buddies and travel buddies to study partners and “slacking-off” companions at work, young people are increasingly breaking social life into specific situations: shared interests and compatible schedules can be enough to form a light, functional relationship. A 2023 survey found that 72.6 percent of young respondents had at least one such “dazi” relationship. The 2026 Social Trends Report goes further, describing these relationships as increasingly lightweight, situational and modular. Over the past year, more than 3.7 million users on Soul App, a Chinese social platform popular with young people, posted content related to “dazi,” generating more than 9.8 billion views. Among these relationships, the “workout buddy” is becoming particularly significant. Having someone to run or train with — and to provide a push on an off day — can make exercise easier to sustain, while adding a social dimension to what was once a largely individual pursuit. This summer, lululemon tapped into the social mood behind the “workout buddy” phenomenon, putting the idea of the “teammate” at the center of its Summer Essentials campaign. Its short film, “Together Feels Better,” stars swimming world champion and lululemon ambassador Wang Shun alongside teammates Ye Shiwen, Zhang Yixiang and He Junyi. Rather than polished heroics, the film captures the teasing, rivalry and mutual support of real training partners, turning the “workout buddy” from a social-media label into something more tangible: companionship, motivation and shared progress. lululemon then turned one of the film’s recurring moves — pull-ups performed by the four athletes — into the campaign’s creative anchor, launching the Summer Sweat Games Pull-Up Challenge, or SSG Pull-Up Challenge for short, and moving the story from the screen into something consumers could physically join. Ahead of China’s National Fitness Day on August 8, the brand staged a special Summer Sweat Games livestream across Douyin, Tmall, JD.com, Xiaohongshu and WeChat Channels, drawing more than 11.5 million views. Wang and his teammates competed against a second team of lululemon ambassadors in pull-ups and other signature challenges, while Wang also shared his approach to choosing workout gear. At the same time, lululemon launched the SSG Pull-Up Challenge on Douyin, drawing more than 4,000 participations online. Offline, challenges at nine stores across nine cities attracted nearly 3,000 people. The momentum spilled onto Xiaohongshu, where users began posting sign-ups and firsthand accounts on their own; at some stores, demand was strong enough to produce queues. On the surface, this was a summer campaign built around the idea of teammates. But behind the 11.5 million livestream views and thousands of online and offline participants was something more telling: lululemon had identified a shift in how young Chinese consumers think about exercise and social life. The Jing Take: Turning national fitness into an everyday urban experience This year’s Summer Essentials campaign does more than tap into the mood behind China’s “workout buddy” culture. It also aligns with the country’s broader push for national fitness. In July, China’s General Administration of Sport issued its 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Leading Sports Nation, calling for stronger public fitness services, more mass-participation events and greater access to everyday spaces for exercise. By 2030, the government aims for around 40 percent of the population to exercise regularly. lululemon’s SSG Pull-Up Challenge fits neatly into that shift. The brand draws on Wang Shun’s public profile without falling back on the familiar champion narrative. Instead, it takes accessible exercises — from pull-ups and kettlebells to team training — across film, livestreams, social media and stores, turning national fitness from something consumers watch into something they can join. From social trends to brand IP: lululemon’s long game Policy timing and the social mood around “workout buddies” help explain why this campaign resonated. They do not fully explain how lululemon turned that resonance into more than 10 million livestream views and thousands of online and offline participants. What carried that momentum was the community foundation lululemon had spent years building. The Summer Sweat Games are one of the clearest examples. Over years of investment, what began as a store-based community challenge has grown into an annual brand property spanning digital content, city stores, team competitions and national events. Its value lies not only in scale, but in how lululemon keeps lowering the barrier to entry, giving consumers at different fitness levels a way in. This year, the offline program again became part of Shanghai Summer. At Zhangyuan, the city’s historic shikumen landmark, lululemon created a “Sweat Avenue” with accessible challenges such as kettlebells and bar hangs, bringing workouts out of the gym and into the street. When exercise becomes something people can encounter, stop for and join on the way through the city, national fitness shifts from policy language into everyday urban life. That is what makes lululemon’s long-term community strategy more interesting than simple membership growth. The brand keeps creating reasons, places and rituals for people to move together. Repeated year after year, those experiences build something more durable than campaign traffic: a fitness culture that belongs to lululemon. Today, more sports brands are talking about lifestyle, building running clubs and staging community events. lululemon’s advantage is that it was not late to this shift. Long before “community” became an industry buzzword, the brand was already connecting products, movement and human relationships within the same system. More importantly, that system keeps evolving. From yoga communities to running, training and broader urban fitness, and from in-person classes to films, podcasts and challenges, lululemon continues to adjust as the way consumers exercise and socialize changes. While many brands are looking for the next trend, what is harder to replicate is lululemon’s combination of a system built over more than a decade and an ability to read what consumers will want next. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

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How lululemon taps China’s social fitness boom

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag