Fitness Center and Gym Design

One of the biggest gym design trends {a trend is something you wish to avoid} is the use of color changing lighting in gyms. Though I understand it’s an easy way to make a gym brand look “cool” I also understand that if your competitors are doing it then you need to do it 10X better.

You need to understand that as well.

If you’re using color changing lighting in your gym add design features that reinforce your brand concept; be they architectural geometries, branded color, reflection, refraction or properties of absorption or transparency.

Color changing lighting can manifest in theatrical and dramatic fashion if you cultivate the surrounding gym interior to amplify your lighting design.

It’s a classical timeless gym symphony, if you want it to be, or a one hit wonder.

In Summary: Don’t do gym lighting trends!

IMAGE CREDIT: Stronger Personal Training​ Worcester Massachusetts, US.

Brick and Mortar gyms will rebound from the lock-down and become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Digital will be integrated across programing and Health and Wellness should be the promotional-marketing-mantra of brands going forward.

There is boundless opportunity {arbitrage on the horizon} for savvy developers who can tap into this narrative. However, in order to do so, gym brands must abandon the obsolete marketing platforms embraced in their pre-lockdown world views. Gyms that look like gyms or boutique hotels are now an unfashionable pre-lockdown fitness world view.

The marketing strategy which can facilitate your effort is a psychological tool. "Shift Consumer Expectations Of What A Gym Experience Might Be."

....an excerpt from another article I'm contributing to for the fitness industry....

Editor:
Part of the thinking for club operators will be creating an environment that people trust, resulting in a potentially more “clinical” look. How does translate into color and lighting?

Me:
"Clinical, in my language, is lean and clean. A lot of gym real estate occupy's windowless subterranean spaces. There's been a trend (and you want to avoid trends) of integrating color changing lighting in dark spaces resulting in a night-club-gym-vibe. As well, gray has been the go-to color scheme employed by gym brands for decades. Maybe we abandon the dark under ground vibe, the seas of gray, and start developing whiter, lighter, brighter gym models that telegraph a new cleanish aesthetic". Cuoco Black

Design For Thrills. I mostly try to provide introspective content on how to use “Innovative” gym design to upstage competitors. This one will focus on design to inspire exercise vs design for projecting coolness. Exercise is hard and requires intensity of effort. That’s why I argue that gyms need to be exciting-animated-theatrical-and fun.... to inspire and excite consumers to exercise. Contrarily, the gyms that are adopting boutique design {hijacked from the hospitality industry} though I’ll agree beautiful, more resemble chill, snobby night clubs and less inspired fitness environments. It’s your call but ask yourself...what are you selling? Fitness and Health or a Chic Lifestyle Experience. In addition, boutique design is an over-indexed design aesthetic used across countless consumer categories that will blur your brand into the boutique design collective. Do You - Do Fitness - Do Thrilling Fitness Spaces

If you're considering developing a new gym brand then make this strategy part of your plan. "Competitor Analysis" in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors in your target demographic. I argue, historically, competitive analysis of "Aesthetics in Gym Design" has been either entirely dismissed, or, glossed over for lack of perceived value of the effort. {Now follow me on this line of thought}. The evidence is tangible. If you have a pulse on gym design as a tool of differentiation I argue that our industry theoretically produces one of two gym design styles. Gyms that look like gyms or gyms that look like boutique hotels. Embrace Competitive Gym Design Analysis because it can provide you with offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats in your marketplace. TAKEAWAY: Create a unique and innovative gym brand and stop building gyms that look like gyms or boutique hotels.

TOP 10 GYM DESIGN TIPS FOR THIS WEEKEND

Over the weekend as you develop your next new gym franchise or studio avoid these 10 design conventions that continue to drown the fitness industry in "Brand-Better-Sameness".

1. Elevate Your Marketing Game And Stop Building Gyms That Look Like Gyms.

2. Elevate Your Marketing Game And Stop Building Gyms That Look Like Boutique Hotels.

3. Avoid Green AstroTurf Used By Nearly Every Gym Brand In The World.

4. Color Changing Lighting Is Currently The Most Over-Indexed Exhausted Design Trend In The Industry.

5. Reject The Home Depot Lighting Affect That Bleaches The Life And Character Out Of A Gym Environment.

6. Reject The 2X4 Ceiling Tile Grid For It's Obsolete Aesthetic And Affiliation With All Things Commercial.

7. Graffiti Is Finished; It's 2019.

8. Motivational Slogans (See 7).

9. Wood Walls, Wood Ceilings, Wood Floors, Wood Furniture: "Wood" You Believe Me If I told You Every Hospitality Design Agency In The World Specifies Wood?

10. If It Looks Like A Gym Or A Boutique Hotel {Go Back To 1}.

We help forward-looking gym developers create the next generation of gyms.....Image Credit: New Franchise Model MeltRx Fitness Littleton MA

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6539491094755966976/

Cuoco Black on LinkedIn: "In perpetuity, two decades immersed, locked in better-sameness, gym developers continue building predictable and commonplace gyms that look like gyms and boutique hotels. In exhausting antiquated competition lanes,... May 29, 2019: Cuoco Black posted images on LinkedIn

MEDIA ALERT: I am happy to announce that we have been retained yet again for the development of a new gym brand with, I'll say it again, another A Player Gym Developer. More details to be released as we move further into concept development.

"Gym-Lash"

A few years ago, as I was repositioning myself in the fitness marketplace, there was only marginal interest in a gym development argument I was making.

I was warning gym developers that the industry was glutted with gym brands promoted by 5th Avenue advertising wizards that more closely resembled investment business vehicles, than fitness models. I presumed (and planned), that gyrations in the demand curve of finicky fitness consumers would some day result in "gym-lash" — the consequence being the rejection of the "template-gyms" for those wonderful mom-and-pop independent gyms that once flourished in the marketplace.

Stay Tuned For A New LinkedIn Article Wherein I'll Identify New Cues And Clues Bearing Witness To The Resurgence Of The Independent Gym Brand And New Franchise Models Void Of Templateitis. Cuoco Black

Gym Development Advice Here > It's the 80/20 Rule Fitness Family. Theoretically invest 80% of your construction budget in your gym reception/social area.

This is where you seduce NEW fitness prospects who tour you gym to buy into your brand.

Hit them with innovation and drama, and I mean drama. Make their first impression of your gym bewildering leaving them to wonder what else does this gym brand have to offer because they've never seen a gym like this before.

This strategy drives revenue and dramatic design is the tool to fuel it.

Here's are two questions. "Do you think your potential prospects have seen a gym like this before? Do you think they would expect to pay more for a membership to train here?

Credit: Stronger Personal Training