Amber Taylor / photo: Les Mills

If I think back to my time at Amazon, a key learning would be that making minor improvements isn’t always the best path forward. Sometimes you need to completely reinvent what you’re doing, based on consumer need.

Take Amazon’s Just Walk Out tech as an example. If the Amazon team had just wanted to create faster grocery stores, they would have put in more checkouts, but they built Just Walk Out to make shopping simple by removing the scanning part of the process.

This is the thinking we need to apply to grow the fitness market, by breaking down barriers for consumers.

Fitness has evolved already through social media and the rise of influencers, but a lot of the content is not safe or grounded in research.

It’s critical to show what’s tested and proven and what’s not. A lot of the content that’s out there may look cool on a social platform, but it can hurt people if workouts aren’t instructed and performed safely.

Clubs and instructors have a great opportunity to use their expertise to cut through the noise with credible content that consumers can trust.

There are three key ways. Firstly, by using it to inform content and product strategies, by identifying in real-time what’s trending among target consumers and serving it up to them.

If running is identified as a trend, offer workouts that enhance running performance and audio-guided runs as a complement to in-gym classes for runners, for example.

Secondly, consumers are drowning in data from their wearables, but often have trouble understanding these numbers when it comes to gleaning useful insights.

Adding the ‘so what’ to the stats that we’re able to provide consumers creates a huge opportunity. Just because someone walked 6k steps doesn’t mean much, but if they did that and then immediately received a recommendation to try a class based on their goal of boosting fitness and flexibility, then we start to join the dots and create an integrated fitness experience.

The final point is to remember to make data fun! Give variable rewards to people to celebrate their achievements. For example, if someone completes five virtual classes in a month in a particular programme, offer an invitation to a VIP-only launch party for that same workout in a live setting.

Another idea is to serve insights in interesting ways – a member might have lifted the equivalent weight of the Eiffel Tower over the course of a year in a class such as Bodypump, so an award could be given for this, or the combined steps of class participants may be the equivalent of walking around the globe, earning them a “walked around the world” award.

This kind of creative thinking can boost engagement, encourage them to share insights (and your services) on their social media feeds and help them set inspiring goals.

All this is underpinned by a need to be obsessive around privacy, with and for consumers.

The playing field is getting bigger and fitness is no longer just about movement – mindfulness, sleep, nutrition, recovery and community are becoming equally important.

It’s clear the world needs fitness now more than ever. Coming out of the pandemic, mental health concerns are on the rise, physical health concerns remain, people are eager for social and community connection, so clubs and instructors have a role to play in tackling all these issues.

Consumer needs have evolved, as have expectations of what a fitness membership entails, so we need to reinvent the way we serve them. We’re well into the age of omnifitness, where personalisation and choice is a basic expectation.

Consumers expect integrated journeys that enable them to reap the rewards of live fitness experiences, while enjoying the convenience and consistency that digital affords.

We need to meet people wherever they are, serving them on their terms. Omnifitness does just that, providing fitness experiences everywhere, through all channels to meet people’s needs and expectations.

It’s not just about pushing content across the web and social media, we’re reinventing how we engage with exercisers to demonstrate our blend of live workouts, community and digital content with the insights and recommendations we’re able to provide by virtue of our expertise. When you join it all up, it’s a powerful mix.

Combining the best of digital and live workouts to elevate both is something we’re really excited about. Necessity is often the mother of invention and during lockdowns we used projected image technology to create ‘holograms’ that meant our presenters could appear on camera leading workouts together, despite being thousands of miles apart.

Since then, these innovations have snowballed, with our Q2 2022 release incorporating extended reality (XR) technology to create stunning new vistas that combine physical shots with digital effects (www.hcmmag.com/XR). It’s a technique used in gaming and film-making, but we see huge potential for delivering fitness content as well. You’ll see in Bodyjam that our programme director, Gandalf Archer-Mills and his team, were transported to a stage high above a futuristic cyber-city.

As mainstream adoption of VR continues to accelerate, the technology offers exciting opportunities to amplify live fitness experiences, ramping up our sector’s reach and impact.

We’re currently testing this with some of our live events, with the goal of creating evergreen VR experiences where users around the world can be transported into the middle of a pulsating Bodypump workout with 2,000 fitness fans, or even take to the stage next to our instructors for the latest Bodycombat workout in front of thousands of fellow fighters.

We serve a two-sided marketplace. On the one hand, we deliver content to clubs and instructors, as well as training and insights to support them in delivering life-changing fitness experiences. Along with live workouts, this includes the use of our digital products (Virtual, Immersive, Les Mills Content and Les Mills+ Affiliate). In addition, we deliver newer offerings, such as our recruitment and support platform – Les Mills Connect – and Marketing Studio.

On the other side, we serve consumers with direct content experiences through Les Mills+ (formerly Les Mills on Demand/LMOD) that also ties back to clubs and instructors.

The connector between the two is research-backed content, which fuels physical and digital fitness experiences to grow the overall market and help create a fitter planet.

My role is to ensure we create the best and most innovative digital offerings that deliver value to consumers, as well as loveable, frictionless experiences.

Luke Waldren / photo

Over the last 30 years I’ve worked in marketing, developing ideas and strategies for brands such as Ford, Honda and Sportsbet. I also co-founded a branded content business called Abundant Media that later became Loup – the maker of fitness app Centr, which is fronted by Chris Hemsworth.

As someone who combines a passion for fitness with a drive to help people succeed, becoming chief customer officer at Les Mills is a dream role.

I helped Sportsbet create the strongest brand in the category, before joining Tabcorp to transform its customer experience programme, so I’m excited to bring these learnings into fitness to help Les Mills become closer to customers and get more people moving.

Customers have always been a key focus for Les Mills – the creation of my role is about being even more intentional in how we enshrine such thinking.

As well as driving closer collaboration with partners, I oversee global marketing and am aiming to evolve our brand to navigate the fast-changing fitness landscape and capitalise on growth opportunities, including turbocharging our home workout product, Les Mills+.

I thought the betting industry was competitive, but fitness makes it look like a tea party! The universal need for physical activity means fitness already has a strong global reach and a long list of providers jostling for position. It’s also diverse in terms of the range of offerings available and the myriad ways people engage, so this brings added complexity, but also significant opportunity for innovation.

Tech is playing a central role in scaling the industry, reaching broader audiences and refining products, but the brands which ultimately win will be those that can add real value to the way people move, through an omnifitness proposition, seamlessly integrating live and digital to deliver a fitness experience greater than the sum of its parts.

Nailing this is the key to moving past 20 per cent penetration and towards mainstream adoption and creating the opportunity for fitness to become a more prominent part of popular culture in the same way music has done.

We’ve seen it in pockets already through the rise of Instagram and more recently TikTok, but there’s an opportunity to go deeper and brands have a role to play in driving this.

The convergence between fitness, fashion, music, and entertainment is fuelling a new age of ‘exertainment’, sparking exciting collaborations and innovative products.

In February we expanded our fitness offerings to not only include online and digital, but also Virtual Reality (VR), with the launch of the Bodycombat VR app. We partnered with VR specialist Odders Labs, launching in the Meta Quest store (at a fixed price of US$29.99). The game is played with the Quest 2 VR headset, with expansion planned onto further platforms.

We’ve smashed our sales targets, selling over 100,000 units in under six months, making us one of Quest’s Top Selling Fitness Apps and we expect to finish the year at over 200 per cent of our initial projections.

While the financials have exceeded expectations, the biggest win has been attracting a younger, gaming-focused audience to the world of workouts. We’ve been inundated with interest and PR requests from Twitch stars and Youtubers, who’ve been streaming the game to their young followings. Many young gamers have lower than average levels of physical activity, so this blend of exercise and entertainment is an unprecedented opportunity to create new pathways into fitness to start building lifelong healthy habits.

We’re maintaining a 4.6 rating out of 5, cementing us as one of the highest-ranked fitness apps, showing the workouts are sticking.

Operators are facing the same challenge betting faced 15 years ago. The proliferation of smartphones and online betting was denting revenues and they were faced with a choice: hope the digital businesses would go away, or embrace it and combine it with physical services to create an omnichannel experience.

Brands such as Paddy Power and Sportsbet that took the leap are reaping the benefits of their fully-fledged ecosystem, while those who failed to adapt have fallen victim to digital Darwinism.

Companies have found consumers don’t mind brands leveraging their data if it’s done responsibly to enhance their experience, rather than just to make a quick buck.

At a time when some operators are struggling to find instructors, we’ve developed Les Mills Connect as a smart marketplace to bring these parties together.

On the other side of the business we’re working to level-up Les Mills+ to ensure consumers accessing it through their health club receive a seamless omnichannel experience that helps them reach their goals and love their club even more.

This is also about reaching people who aren’t yet members of a club and bringing fresh faces into the world of fitness to grow the overall market. We’re doing some exciting testing around this and look forward to sharing a lot more in 2023.

Our pandemic reinvention has also seen us adapting to the shifting needs of the industry. This includes bringing in experts from a range of other industries to bolster our capabilities.

Amber and I are the newest additions, but over the past year we’ve also added many more people into the team who are experts in their fields, bringing fresh perspectives on how we can innovate.

One of the biggest plays is simple: making it a lot easier to do business with us.

We had a wide range of programmes and offerings and it became complicated to partner with us, understand the value this would bring and clearly ascertain the costs.

We’ve listened to this feedback and launched a new pricing structure which is currently being rolled out across our global markets.

This simplifies everything into focused, distinct product bundles that clubs can choose in accordance with their specific needs. With the bundles they get access to a wider range of programmes and services, so there’s more flexibility to mix, match and experiment with what works, without incurring extra costs.

We’ve also established a Club Customer Panel comprising 50 operators from around the world and spanning all segments and sizes. This is guiding product development and ensuring our approach is unwaveringly customer-centric.

Consumer data from our global footprint and the consumer-facing Les Mills+ system also plays a key role in informing our product development, particularly for identifying emerging workout trends and we see huge a opportunity to share findings with all our partners to help them stay relevant in a rapidly-moving market and inform their strategies.

We have vast amounts of insight within the business, and the passion across the team to deliver more for all our customers – clubs, instructors and consumers – is palpable. For me that’s the best signal of our intent.

Instructors are the beating heart of our business, so we’re doubling down on our processes to ensure their voice is equally prominent in shaping our thinking. We’ve carried out quarterly NPS surveys for a long time to solicit regular feedback, but nothing beats live interaction, so we’re making extra efforts to get back out there and have these conversations in person.

We’re midway through the Les Mills Live 2022 tour, which brings live fitness events to major cities around the world. We’ve just done New Orleans and Melbourne, then in October we’re hosting 5,000 Les Mills fans at the Excel Centre in London for group workouts.

Instructors are the backbone of these events and remain the big focus, but we’re excited to see an uplift in consumer attendances as well.

Change is constant. Trends pass, fads fizzle out, but only true innovators endure.

One of the things I most admire about Les Mills is that for 54 years, the company has been constantly reinventing what it means to be a fitness brand.

Right now, we’re innovating again, developing new live and digital programmes and products to redefine fitness for the next generation.

Gen Z and millennials (under 40s) make up over 80 per cent of the fitness market, yet some operators are struggling to attract these key demographics and remain relevant in the face of tough competition.

If the pandemic was defined by the industry’s use of technology to keep members moving, then the next phase of growth will be driven by operators’ ability to win their share of Gen Z and millennial customers.

This is now a major battleground, so my vision is to help Les Mills empower the industry to engage this key demographic, kickstarting a new era of growth that gets us closer to our goal of creating a fitter planet.