Chris Wilcox of PEL Services looks at the importance of sound in creating a consistent brand for your facility

“What song are you?” In a brief moment of unguarded downtime the other day, I did one of those online personality tests whereby the resulting song is meant to represent your personality and is arrived at by answering a stream of daft questions about what clothes you wear, your favourite colour, what makes you angry and so on. I shared it with my friends on Facebook and soon they were all at it, some delighted with their assigned song (You are so beautiful – OK then!), some less impressed (come on, The Joker – really?)

It was just a bit of fun during the dull commute to work – not to be taken too seriously… Or is that really all it was? Comments from my friends hint at something more fundamental: these songs represent a common experience, a common language we all can engage in.

You see, music is undeniably powerful. Yet it’s also intimate and often subliminal.

Don’t leave it to chance
Health clubs, spas and salons plugged in to the power of music a long time ago. It’s now rare to enter one and not hear music, whether it’s in the background or front/centre in key areas of the site.

But the choice of playlist can be hit and miss, or lazy and formulaic. Silence is awkward and instinctively avoided, but it’s often the case that individual staff are left to improvise by plugging in their mp3 player with their own choice of tracks on shuffle, resulting in a playlist that can be the polar opposite of what the brand represents. This in turn has a direct and negative impact on the intended experience for customers.

For clubs that have invested energy and resources into developing their brand, leaving something as important as a brand’s soundtrack to chance is, at best, risky. For starters you have the issue of potentially causing offence through inappropriate lyrics on a track.

But it’s not just about avoiding offence. Music has a positive contribution to make. It represents an excellent opportunity to reinforce your brand’s identity and even provide a richer brand experience.

I believe the time has therefore come for health clubs and leisure centres to pay expert attention to this area of their business, developing a brand soundtrack that adapts their sound to different demographics and applying this audio-branding consistently but adaptively over days, weeks, months and years.

What are your options?
So how can this be done? It’s about matching the music directly to the brand and, just as importantly, to the customer. But that’s not as easy as you might think.

Our experience shows that success comes from understanding your target market’s emotional and rational desires and habits, reflecting this in your soundtrack while at the same time retaining a clear brand identity.

The delivery of that soundtrack then has to be flexible enough to accommodate customers’ requirements as they change throughout the day – and across different regions if you have a number of branches.

For large organisations with multiple clubs, an in-house live radio feel – syndicated across all clubs – is one highly effective solution, albeit an expensive one. The radio stations have to be staffed by experienced professionals who are fully immersed in the brand and understand the customers they’re playing for. The stations are run very much along similar lines to real broadcast radio stations, with playlists, DJs, producers and so on. However, for the majority of health and fitness clubs the outlay is prohibitive.

Not that this should rule out smart forms of pre-recorded in-house radio for health clubs though – bespoke pre-recorded radio shows, but without the expense of your own dedicated radio station. This service is a very flexible one in that you can incorporate music, a DJ, ads and promotions. You can also have different promotions for different clubs, and even different DJ accents for different geographic regions.

A cost-effective solution that’s popular with smaller organisations and clubs is a professional music-only supply service. Companies providing this service will create a music playlist that reflects the brand image and customer profile. It’s updated monthly, either by broadband or CD, to be downloaded onto a hard disc music player in each club.

Outsourced expertise
The Third Space is a prime example of a health club that embraces music as part of its branding, having invested in a monthly-update playlist service.

The Third Space – with its two clubs in Soho and Marylebone, central London – is dedicated to delivering a new form of ‘healthy hedonism’, adopting an integrated approach by bringing together leading experts and facilities to cater for all requirements in the areas of exercise, health, medicine, relaxation, nutrition and fun.

There are several areas within the premises that require different types and tempo of music – although all music must of course support the company’s brand values and customer base.

On the main floor areas, the focus is on dance music with upbeat, fast tempos to coincide with peak hours; in contrast, the changing rooms feature relaxing acoustic and chill music for a calm atmosphere.

Diane Kay, director of sales & marketing for The Third Space and its two sister clubs – thirtysevendegrees Tower Bridge and the Reebok Sports Club London – explains why the operator chose to outsource music curation. “Having a professional music supplier takes all the time-consuming research and playlist-building processes out of our hands and leaves it to the professionals,” she says. “Music is an ever-changing entity and we need that expert knowledge to stay apace with current trends; it’s what our members have come to expect from us.”

The Third Space playlists cycle on a daily basis and up to 20 new tracks are added each month. But the type of music played has to go beyond merely what’s in vogue, as Kay adds: “The music we play has to be something our members enjoy listening to in the background, whether it be while they’re having a workout, having a shower or getting changed and ready for work.

“The music played in the different zones of the club needs to reflect the activities taking place within them and, hopefully, should enhance people’s moods to best prepare them for the rest of their day.”