During a talk in New York on Monday, John Foley, the chief executive of Peloton, did not laugh off the negative reaction to the fitness company’s holiday commercial, a 30-second spot that drew intense criticism and caused Peloton stock to drop 9 percent in one day. Neither did he apologize or defend it. In fact, Mr. Foley did not mention it at all.

During his 40-minute appearance at a Midtown Manhattan conference hosted by the financial firm UBS, Mr. Foley discussed profitability and international expansion. The closest he got to discussing the commercial — which has been derided as sexist, classist, dystopian and tone deaf — was talking about the high prices of the company’s equipment.

“We have a fun challenge, and we’re going to solve it as marketers, because the reality is that it is an incredible value, and we’re changing lives, and we’re allowing people to get more fit and get more healthy and get those endorphins and be better versions of themselves and all this existential stuff that we’re excited about at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” he said, referring to the 1943 theory by the psychologist Abraham Maslow.

“But we need to communicate that better,” Mr. Foley continued, in what seemed a tacit acknowledgment that the commercial may have hurt the company.