Not to be rude or anything, but it’s just a boring fact of modern life that sugar substitutes are all about cutting calories and health clubs are all about enhancing fitness. Ho hum, end of story, right?

Well, not if you kick the proposition up a couple of notches by combining those two elements and tossing in a master aerobics class led by a TV personality, plus give consumers the opportunity to contribute to a worthy cause while quaffing a tasty, low-cal fruit drink.

That, in a (healthy) nutshell, is the concept for a Canada-wide promotion for Mississauga, Ont.-based Merisant Canada’s Equal sweetener. The brainchild of Toronto-based events specialist Consolidated Marketing Group (CMG), the approximately 30-stop health club tour begins in the Vancouver area early next month and moves on to Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes later in the year.

‘It’s really an extension of a very successful program we ran about a year ago in health clubs across Ontario aimed at a 25-to-49 female demographic,’ explains CMG’s MD, Toro Bustamante. At that time, the addresses of 390 women, who entered into a draw to win a trip to the Caribbean, were added to a database for future promotions.

‘But that was a straight sampling program and this takes it way beyond just handing out sachets of the product. We want to promote new ideas on how to use Equal by using it in fruit drinks for people who take our classes at the clubs and then giving them recipes to try out at home.’

To entice as many exercisers and drinks samplers as possible, CMG arranged for fitness expert Sharon Mann to lead the special aerobics classes. The popular host and co-producer of the In Shape series on the W network is a four-time Canadian National Aerobic Champion and co-owner of Toronto’s Burntrax Productions, which produces fitness music and exercise DVDs.

No advertising of the promotion is contemplated. Instead, Mann’s visits will be publicized within the targeted clubs with banners, large posters at the main doors and smaller ones in women’s washrooms, plus counter cards at the reception desks.

‘And to make it all even more worthwhile,’ says Bustamante, signing up for a class requires a $5 donation to the Canadian Diabetes Association. That amount will be matched by Equal, with the overall goal of raising at least $13,500 on behalf of C.D.A. this year.

Bustamante, who lives with the condition himself and says he uses Equal in a lot of his own home cooking, says, ‘It’s really just another in a series of community-based projects we’ve done in partnership with the C.D.A. for the past 20 years.’

As for any anticipated sales-lift payoff for Equal, Bustamante is noncommittal. But his client’s product currently enjoys a 36% share in Canada and, according to its Web site, Chicago-headquartered Merisanto’s products ‘account for about 40% of the approximately US$1 billion worldwide alternative sweetener market.’

Sometimes throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a promotion isn’t such a bad idea.