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where folks sweat
Post-Xmas, health clubs will hop. Beat the rush.
By Kathy Prentice
With the holiday season–and the attendant dinners, parties and celebrations–well underway, it won’t be long until consumers wish they could tighten their belts. Literally.
In a few weeks, as retail winds down, health and fitness businesses will be gearing up for the new year.
And in health club locker rooms, reception areas and workout stations, weight-anxious consumers will be walking past wall posters for products from shampoo to vitamins to apparel.
To find out how to get your client’s message in front of captive consumers as they work out, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying the new out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
Fast Facts
What
Mini-billboards placed in health clubs.
Who
Health Club Panel Network, headquartered in Encino, Calif.
How it works
Each panel features a single advertiser.
Health club panels can be used in standalone campaigns or as part of a media mix.
“Most of the time the panels are chosen as the out-of-home element running with print and broadcast,” says Greg Helm, executive vice president of marketing for Health Club Panel Network.
Placement within a club depends on size, with most clubs having space for 10 to 11 panels, Helm says.
“Placement can be within the locker rooms and grooming areas and within the common areas, including reception, cardiovascular, aerobics or weights areas.”
On-site promotions, take-one racks for brochures or coupons, sampling, and events are available.
“More and more advertisers are wanting to complement panels with sampling,” Helm says. “Coty had an ad panel for its fragrance, Adidas, and in this case we actually handed out samples to ladies as they came in.
“Usually, since people come in twice a week, you don’t need to hand out samples for more than a week.”
Samples can also be distributed through a take-one display. Club personnel hand-deliver samples.
Ceiling banners, logos on exercise balls and crunch mats, and swipes on mirrors are also promotion possibilities. Club personnel can wear branded apparel.
Promotion possibilities also include coupon distribution, questionnaires, and distribution of logo-laden shirts and shower mats.
National advertisers predominate, but regional companies also use health club panels.
Markets can be cherry-picked, with a minimum buy of half the number of clubs in any one market. Advertisers can target by gender and geography.
Creative is usually provider by the advertiser.
Ads are either 16- by 20-inch or 26- by 37-inch panels.
Customized ads tying into the health theme are often used.
“Nissan’s ad for its truck focused on muscle,” Helm says. “It compared the musculoskeletal system to a muscle kind of truck, customizing the creative to the venue.”
Regional advertisers frequently enlarge magazine ads to use in the panels.
Product exclusivity is not assumed, but within a given area of a gym competing products wouldn’t be placed within view of each other.
“Say if there were two deodorants and both wanted the same month, we might place one in the grooming area and the other in the locker room area so there would be some separation,” Helm says.
An advertiser can buy a specific area of the club like the women’s locker room. Or an advertiser can buy an entire club.
“We did a program with Noxzema last year where it owned the club,” Helm says. “You were bombarded with ad messages for a new Noxzema product almost everywhere you went.”
Markets
Health Club Panel Network is in the top 40 markets. Markets include New York, northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Cleveland, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Orlando, Portland, San Diego, Indianapolis, Hartford–New Haven, Charlotte, Raleigh–Durham, Nashville, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Columbus, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Battle Creed, Birmingham, Memphis, New Orleans, Buffalo, Oklahoma City, Harrisburg, Albuquerque–Santa Fe, Providence, Jacksonville, Albany, Fresno, Tulsa, Richmond, Austin, Las Vegas, Toledo, Green Bay, Des Moines, Tucson, Rochester, Madison, Santa Barbara and other markets.
The 1,400 gyms in the network include World Gym, Gold’s Gym, Powerhouse, L.A. Fitness, Lucille Roberts and others.
Numbers
Ads reach approximately three million 25- to 54-year-old consumers monthly.
There are 15,000 health clubs in the U.S. About half or 7,500 have memberships of 300 or less. Of the remaining 7,500, HCPN is in 1,400, with each averaging 3,000 active members, Helm says. Active members are defined as frequenting their club 7 ½ times monthly for a 60- to 90-minute workout.
How measured?
A total number of ad impressions is gotten by multiplying the number of posters in a club by the average 7 ½ monthly visits by active members, for nearly 90 million impressions per month for the entire network.
Coupon redemption and the number of brochures taken from displays are used as one type of measurement. Redemption rates have ranged from the normal range of .5 percent to 1.5 percent to 6 percent in the case of a low-calorie breakfast cake, Helm says.
Surveys are used with consumers as well as with club managers to get their feedback on campaigns. Follow-up telephone surveys can be used to measure the success of sampling.
HCPN provides advertisers with monthly affidavits certifying placement and location of panels within health clubs. Photographs are included for each panel flight.
What product categories do well?
Categories linked to health and fitness predominate.
Beauty products, hair care, deodorant, skin care, travel, fitness, financial, entertainment, workout and casual apparel, automotive, fragrances and food products do well.
“We don’t get a lot of ads for junk food,” Helm says. “We don’t accept tobacco or alcohol.”
Demographics
The average number of members per club is 3,000, with a gender breakdown of 49 percent male to 51 percent female.
Married members comprise 52 percent of the total to 48 percent single.
Of the 30.5 million American adults belonging to health clubs, nearly 12 percent are under 18, 33 percent are ages 18 to 34, 38 percent are ages 35 to 54 and 17 percent are ages 55 and older.
The average member is 35 years old, while the average American is 35.2 years old.
The typical health club member earns $50,000-plus per year and pays for his or her club membership, rather than having it picked up by a third party, such as an employer.
Annual household income breaks down to 12 percent making less than $25,000, 24 percent earning $25,000 to $49,000, 25 percent making $50,000 to $75,000 and 39 percent making in excess of $75,000.
The higher the income level, the more likely individuals are to be physically active. Those with incomes in excess of $75,000 exercise at health clubs at a rate 55 percent above the average.
Occupations of health club members break down to nearly 50 percent in professional and managerial positions, 17 percent self-employed, 10 percent sales and clerical, 8 percent students and 7 percent homemakers.
Nine out of 10 health club members drink water or a sports beverage each time they work out.
The higher the education level individuals reach, the more likely they are to be physically active. Of the U.S. adult population, 10 percent of college graduates are members of a private health club.
Individuals with higher incomes are also more likely to be physically active. Those with incomes above $75,000 exercise at health clubs at a rate 67 percent higher than the average.
Nearly 99 percent of health club members take vitamins or supplements.
Americans who participate regularly in sports, fitness or outdoor activities rose 19 percent between 1987 and 1996, while the population grew by 11 percent.
U.S. health club membership is expected to reach 50 million by 2010, according to the Surgeon General’s "Report on Physical Activity and Health."
Messages for parents and children can be displayed through The Health Club Panel Children’s Network in the 500-plus child care centers located in health clubs.
Making the buy
Advertisers provide the printed posters to the network.
Ad-panel artwork and coupons are due by the 20th of the month for posting by the 5th of the following month.
Contracts can be written for one month, but the majority are for two to three months and can be for a longer duration, Helm says.
Monthly rates, per panel, per club are $160 for standard panels (16 by 20 inches) and $205 for super panels (26 by 37 inches). Pricing is based on a national buy. Individual markets will be priced upon request.
Factors that affect pricing include the number of markets and number of clubs.
Discounts are negotiable for multi-month and multi-panel contracts.
One creative change each month is included in the contract.
Who’s already on Health Club Panels?
ABC, American Express, Balance Bar, Best Foods, Breath Asure, Colgate, Crystal Geyser Juice, Dep Corporation, IBM, Entenmann’s Baked Goods, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Gatorade, Gilda Marx Women’s Athletic Wear, Gorp.com, Leukemia Society of America, Noxzema Skin Care, Fresh Express Salads, Lipovitan, Minute Maid, NBC, Pert Plus, Post Grape-Nuts, Procter & Gamble, Protopic, Rejuveness Scar Treatment, Rembrandt, Secret Deodorant, Self Magazine, Sony Pictures, Snapple, Tampax, 20th Century Fox, Vita-Mix, Alta Dena Nonfat Yogurt, California Highway Patrol and other advertisers.
Web site info
Health Club Panel Network
November 26, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Kathy Prentice writes about out-of-home advertising for Media Life, penning her stories from the resort town of Traverse City, in the upper reaches of Michigan.
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