David Buzo was working out one day in early January, right in the heart of the New Year's advertising push by health club companies, when something on his iPhone caught his attention.
While using the Internet radio streaming service Pandora to listen to music on his iPhone, Buzo saw an advertisement for LA Fitness. Later, he saw another advertisement for Anytime Fitness.
This new avenue of health club advertising is right up Buzo's alley. Not only is he a digital media consultant with MONA Group, Charlotte, NC, but he also is the community marketing director at the YMCA of Greater Charlotte. This year, he has noticed more digital advertising in the fitness industry than in previous years.
"It seems like the fitness industry has always been a little bit more old school in terms of how we're going to try and reach new members," Buzo says. However, this year, more fitness companies have caught up with the digital advertising trend, which eliminates costs.
Digital and direct advertising are vital to health club companies both during the recent January push and through the remainder of the year. Even though January has come and gone, the importance of the first month of the year still resonates with health club companies looking to gain an edge over the competition.
"January sets the tone for the year," says David Reiseman, vice president of communications for Gold's Gym International, Dallas. "It is the Super Bowl of our industry. January is to the gym business what December is to retailers."
Anytime Fitness Chief Marketing Officer Stacy Anderson says her company is spending a fraction on its advertising campaign this year compared to the likes of Equinox and Planet Fitness, which have rolled out new advertising campaigns in 2014. Anderson, who declined to give specific numbers on Anytime's advertising costs, says the company is focusing more of its resources on less costly digital advertising. Pandora, which can channel advertising through a person's zip code on his or her profile, has become one of Anytime's biggest lead-generating sources, Anderson says.
"We don't have the deep pockets of Planet Fitness or some of those folks that have multi-million-dollar ad campaigns out there," Anderson says. "Clearly, there are a lot of advantages to digital media. It is just extremely measurable, it's incredibly efficient, especially compared to traditional media. And it lets us deliver the right message at exactly the right time to people in a way that broader-based media doesn't."
Anytime Fitness uses personalized retargeting, Anderson adds, in which Anytime attaches a cookie to someone who comes to its website and follows him or her as they continue their searches on the Internet.
"Whereas other clubs are taking this top-down approach in terms of mass market media, we're kind of taking a bottom-up approach through different tools we use digitally to serve up the right messages at the right time," Anderson says. "If the message is relevant, and it's something [people are] searching for, people welcome those messages. We've seen a nice, steady incline in awareness and consideration and all those key marketing metrics without having to spend $20 million on a national ad campaign."
Direct Advertising and Other Campaigns
Despite the growth of digital marketing, direct marketing is still important for many club companies. Gold's Gym created a new campaign for this year using several of its members who have transformed their bodies through Gold's Gym weight-loss challenges. Gold's flew a select group of members from all over the country to Dallas for the advertising campaign photo shoot. Gold's also shared the members' weight-loss stories on YouTube.
Reiseman says 85 percent to 90 percent of Gold's Gym franchisees have adopted the advertising campaign, which makes it the most widely adopted campaign in the company's history. Less than 50 percent of franchisees have adopted the company's past campaigns, with most franchisees opting to use simple stock photos that did not have the Gold's Gym branding in their advertising.
"The usage of standardized creative across our franchise base was very fragmented," Reiseman says. "Some people in recent history had used some of the creative that we put out—print, TV, radio—but our adoption rates were mediocre at best."
The goal for this year's campaign was to create something that would be widely adopted by the franchisees and that is 'ownable' and has a distinct look and feel, he says.
"When you go to your mailbox, and a couple of direct mail pieces fall out, you've got 3 seconds to not only stand out from the pile of stuff in the direct mail but to make some sort of emotional connection," Reiseman says.
Gold's Gym, Equinox and Planet Fitness each used an outside agency to help in the creation and launch of their campaigns. Gold's Gym turned to McKinney, Durham, NC. Equinox, New York, used Wieden + Kennedy, New York. Planet Fitness, Newington, NH, used Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners, Philadelphia.
Equinox's campaign, buoyed by a new set of edgy photos and videos, reportedly cost $6 million, according to sources outside Equinox. Planet Fitness declined to disclose the cost of this year's campaign, which consisted of a new set of commercials that aired online and during this past season of TV's "The Biggest Loser." However, if the expenses were in line with reports of recent Planet Fitness advertising campaign costs, it likely totaled several million dollars.
"The 2014 advertising campaign clearly reinforces not only what Planet Fitness offers—extremely affordable memberships, tons of high-quality equipment, unlimited fitness training and more—but it also highlights what you will not find at Planet Fitness—lunky behavior that often makes people feel intimidated," McCall Gosselin, the director of public relations for Planet Fitness, said in an email. "This is extremely important to us, and it's what differentiates us from every other gym."
Other club companies pushing for new members through advertising include Crunch, New York, which this month unveiled a new campaign depicting members having a dream-like experience during their workouts.
"The Crunch experience has always been defined by creating a fun and engaging environment that allows people to truly look forward to their workout experience each and every day," Jessica Pollack, public relations director at Crunch, said in an email. "The goal of the ads is to highlight one of Crunch's key points of differentiation in an increasingly crowded marketplace. They are meant to capture the fun and enjoyment the person feels at Crunch by illustrating it in an over-the-top way."
That type of targeted advertising is going to continue to differentiate clubs from the competition, regardless of whether the ads are in digital form or direct mail.
"Know what your brand is," Buzo says, "and know what your consumer is."