Product first to Fitness First: How a $25m boost reshaped the brand

Fitness First had a marketing problem. Years of category conformity had left the brand struggling to stand apart and another campaign wasn't going to change that.

So instead of rushing to market with a new brand promise, Fitness First invested $25 million upgrading its clubs across NSW. Only then did the business ask what the brand should stand for in a category crowded with lookalike competitors.

“We had lost our edge. We were a faceless corporate behemoth,” Sara Dunseath, executive general manager of marketing, told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.

“There was very little relevance. It was just kind of like, oh yeah, it's a gym. So for us, the challenge was how do we reclaim that relevancy without just being another fitness brand."

The answer, she said, was to put the product first. “We realised there was no point doing any form of marketing until we invested in the product.”

What resulted was 'Let's Put Fitness First', a campaign designed to move the conversation away from six-pack abs and gym culture, and instead encourage Australians to put fitness back on the national agenda.

Research also challenged one of Australia's biggest assumptions about itself. Despite its reputation as a nation of surfers, runners and weekend athletes, just 22% of adults meet the recommended physical activity guidelines.

“That's so surprising because as a nation we pride ourselves on being this fit, active, outdoorsy population,” Dunseath said. “We had this opportunity and platform to put fitness back on the national agenda.”

Dunseath argues the campaign itself was only possible because the product came first.

"It wasn't necessarily a campaign," she said. "It was about celebrating 25 years of Fitness First by asking how we could genuinely disrupt the category without it becoming a mud-flinging competition."

The project also marked a new way of working with agency partners. Rather than briefing creative and media separately, Leo Australia and Spark Foundry were brought together from the outset alongside the Fitness First marketing team.

"It just felt like one team," Dunseath said. "There were really no borders. Everybody had something to say, ideas were riffing and we were pulling things apart together. It didn't feel like the stereotypical two agencies in one room."

For Spark Foundry CEO Matt Turl, genuine integration happens long before campaign assets are produced.

"Integration happens when you work off a singular insight that points you in one direction, and you start together and you stay together," he said. 

"We were able to create assets, physical activations and media thinking together because everyone was involved from the beginning."

Leo Australia executive creative director Tommy Cehak believes the work only happened because the agency stopped thinking in creative and media silos.

"There's absolute truth in that whole 'one team, one dream' perspective," he said.

"It wasn't just between creative and media, but Sara and her team as well. We were all in from the very first meeting."

The approach also helped the campaign avoid the visual clichés that dominate the fitness category.

"We wanted to embrace Fitness First's pioneering role in the industry rather than create another campaign full of washboard abs and lycra," Cehak said.

"We wanted to talk to people beyond those already looking for a gym and put fitness back on the national agenda."

That philosophy also extended into execution. Illustration replaced traditional fitness photography, while contextual outdoor creative encouraged Australians to choose stairs over escalators and rethink everyday movement. For Cehak, creative and media became inseparable. 

"There's no moment of handing the creative over to media," he said. "It's just a continuum."

Six months on, brand consideration, preference and perceptions around value have all improved. Direct and organic leads are also up 40% year on year.

"I didn't want this to be about paid media," Dunseath said. "Our leads through direct and organic increased by 40% year-on-year. That shows we've worked really hard at this.

“It's not just the creative. It's the SEO, the tagging through the site and the teamwork we've done collaboratively as one team.

"That's meaningful commercial impact because those leads drive sales, and when we have more sales, we've got more money to invest back into the business."

For Dunseath, that's the only measure that matters.

"It's never been about doing something that's cool or award-winning. It's about asking how we make a meaningful impact on the business."