The group CEO of Holmes Place talks to Kate Cracknell about its new Evo gym-only concept, the importance of brand identity, and a possible return to the UK

Boutique can’t just be to do with size, design or price,” says Jonathan Fisher, group CEO of Holmes Place. “A great boutique fitness offering has to stand on an idea, an approach to exercise, that really engages people. It needs a very distinct story and philosophy.

“That’s been done with group exercise, but I’m not aware of it having been done with a gym offering before, so that’s what we’ve set out to do.”

Sharing expertise
The spark of the boutique gym idea came a couple of years ago, after Holmes Place chief marketing officer Sean Turner went to Norway to see the founders of Evo Fitness (see HCM Oct 13, p30).

“What Sean saw in Evo Fitness was a very strong model, but also the potential to build on it and take it even further,” says Fisher. “Specifically, we felt there was an opportunity to overlay an idea, a brand philosophy, and this fitted perfectly with the vision I already had: for a gym where people learnt to move skilfully.”

Holmes Place therefore entered into a licensing agreement with Evo Fitness to roll out the brand across Europe – an agreement that allowed Holmes Place to build on the existing Evo model with its own vision and philosophy (see p35).

But why, with such a clear vision – not to mention expertise in building health clubs – did Holmes Place even need to partner with Evo? “We did look at starting from scratch ourselves, but Evo’s was a very robust commercial concept – underpinned by very good personal training and IT structures – and was something we were keen to buy into,” says Fisher. “In fact, the work Evo had done was the catalyst for me thinking about this boutique convenience segment.

“We wanted to use so much of Evo’s model that we decided, if they were happy for us to take the brand where we felt it needed to go, then we should do it. And then, if they wanted to share in that journey and take learnings back from us, we’d be happy with that.

‘To their credit, that was the main reason why they did it. They’ve been very interested in what we’re doing and we’re now seeing some of our philosophy – the notion of skillful human movement – being worked into their existing clubs.”

Evo expansion
The obvious question, given Holmes Place’s long track record in high-end, full-service health clubs is: why venture into this new gym-only arena?

“It’s always nice to start something from fresh. It gives you huge scope to be innovative, creative, bold,” says Fisher. “When you have 35 years of culture and 80 clubs, as we do with Holmes Place, that’s quite a big organisation to bring change to.

“The other reason is that Holmes Place is a big model – each new club requires a lot of investment, planning and preparation. We’re growing organically, but no more than one or two clubs a year.

“In the meantime, we’re seeing areas of the industry that are growing very rapidly. That’s exciting from a commercial perspective and we wanted to be part of it.

“But we’re not interested in a quick win. We’ll only go into businesses where we feel we can bring something genuinely different – where our model will be sustainable and with a unique competitive advantage for the mid- and long term. All of which takes us back to the importance of creating an identity – not just from a brand perspective but also from a content perspective. I believe Evo absolutely delivers on that.”

The new Evo offering isn’t being positioned as a Holmes Place sub-brand, but rather as a standalone business.

“I think we’ve been guilty of trying to stretch the Holmes Place brand too much, taking it in directions it didn’t really belong,” acknowledges Fisher. “We didn’t take it too far, but for example we had purely fitness-focused clubs and a few smaller footprint locations where we couldn’t deliver the full Holmes Place wellbeing experience.

“About two or three years ago we recognised this and decided to take a step back. You can’t stand for everything – you have to stand for something – and we’ve taken time out to distil the essence of what Holmes Place is about and make sure we don’t dilute that in any way. Holmes Place is about relaxation and lifestyle and urban sanctuary. It’s for a more mature market and it’s about being comfortable – being well, but enjoying yourself in the process.

“Meanwhile Evo is very different, with tremendous personality and its own sense of purpose. It’s a performance brand for committed exercisers who want to develop skills for the outside world. If we’d positioned it as a Holmes Place sub-brand, it would have been the worst of both worlds, limiting what Evo could become and also confusing what Holmes Place stands for.”

And the rationale seems to be paying off. Specific figures are off the record, but the Geneva club broke even very quickly and a strong roll-out is now planned: Evo will expand across Germany, Austria and Switzerland by Q3 2016, with a focus on cities like Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich. “In fact, we’re about to do a joint venture with Auctus – a very successful private equity firm in Germany – to expand both Evo and Holmes Place in that market,” says Fisher.

And other markets are on the table too: “We’ve taken the Evo licence for the whole of Europe other than Scandinavia and Russia. Some markets we’ll do on our own, others we’d possibly look to joint venture.

“We haven’t really made decisions around that for the moment, but for example in markets we’re not currently in – such as France and Italy – we might look to find a local partner. We’ve also agreed with the Norwegians that, for the big markets – the UK, US, Japan, China, Brazil, India, Australia – we’ll joint venture with them.

“I also think we’re coming up with something that will be so well-defined, it will be a great franchise model. We’re looking to franchise in the second half of this year, once we’ve fine-tuned the concept and all of its training methods, with one of the markets we’re particularly interested in being Japan.”

A return to the UK?
The UK is also on his hit list – which is interesting given that Holmes Place sold its UK estate in 2006. “The UK is very appealing,” says Fisher. “I think it’s almost time for us to return to that market – not just with Evo but with Holmes Place too.

“I don’t want to try and wrestle market share away from other operators by force – as I said before, we only go into markets if we feel we’re able to bring something sustainably different to the table – but I feel that there’s an opportunity for both brands in the UK.”

Fisher concludes: “In terms of Evo, though – not just in the UK but around the world – I can’t even conceptualise how big it could be. I see it as a new category – one that’s relevant for any mature market. It could be huge. It’s also easy to expand as a business model. The financiers like it. The members like it.

“It has science – in its IT platform and in as much as the sums add up – and it has soul in its training philosophy. I can easily see it adding 30–40 per cent to our turnover over the next five years.”