Brand expert, Kantar, has curated a selected ranking of health club operators and overlaid consumer insight data to show how they perform in relation to perceived value and consumer awareness.
The research sample used to create the insight was comprised of consumers who are ‘category users’, ie, are or have been members of a health club.
Many operators are not included, so the list is not comprehensive, but it does give valuable insights into customer sentiment, which is an area of growing interest for the sector.
The rankings are part of the Kantar BrandSnapshot powered by its BrandZ service, which delivers intelligence on 10,000 brands in more than 40 markets, offering a quick read on each brand’s performance.
Listed in the health and fitness operator segment are Pure Gym, David Lloyd Leisure, Fitness First, Virgin Active, Nuffield Health, JD Gym and Everyone Active. Also assessed are Crossfit, Les Mills and Peloton.
Awareness rankings
The overall ranking of consumer brand awareness – based on a sample of 401 people and assessing the brands by the percentage of people who are aware of them when prompted – shows Pure Gym as the UK health and fitness operator with the highest level of consumer awareness in the group at 92 per cent.
DLL comes in at 78 per cent – the same position as fitness brand Peloton – with Fitness First close behind at 76 per cent.
Virgin Active is next at 72 per cent on a par with Nuffield Health, with JD Gyms on 78 per cent and Everyone Active on 41 per cent.
Crossfit comes in at 73 per cent and global brand Les Mils Mills at 50 per cent – this is likely because the Les Mills brands, such as Body Pump, have higher rates of consumer recognition than the name of the company.
Insight into perceptions of pricing
Kantar also assessed perceptions around pricing, finding a wide range of results.
Pure Gym is seen as ‘great value’ by consumers, as is JD Gyms, with this meaning, as expected, that they ‘deliver great value to customers at a low price point’. Kantar says this leaves room for the brands to leverage their strong position in negotiations and offer premium extensions, as well as advertising their value.
In the next category, Fitness First and Everyone Active are seen as ‘value’ brands, which Kantar says means they rely on pricing to sustain business, but in the longer term could benefit from brand-building. Advice is to communicate price advantage when compared with competitors and emphasise quality and value in marketing.
Virgin Active is seen as ‘margin risk’, which, according to the insight, means it “could be in trouble if it doesn’t demonstrate value to its members’. Kantar recommends investing in the brand and limiting the use of price promotions to those that will drive people to do a trial. Also to create ‘bundle’ options to improve value perception, potentially using a ‘good, better, best’ strategy.
David Lloyd Leisure is seen as ‘high priced’, meaning it needs to ‘ensure brand associations are well supported and that it ‘could be losing custom at the point of sale’. Advice from Kantar in this situation is to ensure smaller ‘unit sizes’ are available for consumers – for example, as a trial or an affordable treat – and to reframe the value by using less quantifiable concepts such as time, happiness and pleasure in messaging.
Nuffield Health is seen as ‘overpriced’, meaning it might ‘risk the need to rely on price promotions’, which is interesting, given Nuffield is currently running a ‘no joining fee and get two months free’ offer (@ 1 March 2024).
Kantar did not seek to establish if consumers value Nuffield’s links to the medical sector and its more holistic offering or the effect this is having on perceptions.
In its report, Kantar advises Nuffield to identify weakness in brand perfections, especially among non-customers and seek cost reductions to lower price levels, while also checking if the operation is over-depending on price promotions.
Demand power
Kantar has measures it calls ‘Demand Power’ which it uses to assess a brand’s power to capture significantly more volume of business and ‘Future Power’, which indicates its potential to gain value share in the future. It also assesses ‘Pricing Power’ – the ability to command a price premium.
Looking at these measures one at a time, Pure Gym comes top for Demand Power with a score of 20.8 per cent with DLL a distant second at 12.1 per cent.
Fitness First sits at 10.8 per cent, Virgin Active and Nuffield Health at 8.4 per cent and JD Gyms at 9.3 per cent. Everyone Active is at 5.4 per cent.
Demand Power estimates a brand’s volume-share based on brand associations. Calculated from measures of how ‘meaningful’, ‘different’ and ‘salient’ the brand is, Demand Power is reported as a percentage.
Pricing power
Pricing power is calculated only by asking those who would consider purchasing the brand, with a score of 100 representing the “justification of the brand’s equity to the category’s average price”.
David Lloyd scored most highly at 103, with PureGym close behind with 102 and JD Gyms at 100.
Everyone Active and Fitness First tied at 98 and Nuffield Health came in at 97. Virgin Active was at 95.
In the supplier group, Peloton was 107, Crossfit 102 and Les Mills 99, showing they have high levels of consumer awareness when it comes to value.
Future power
Kantar also measures ‘Future Power’ – the probability that a brand will grow value share in the next 12 months, based on the strength of current brand associations. This measure is expressed as an index, where the average score is 100.
Everyone Active comes out on top with 124 – one of the highest scores – with PureGym second with 113 and David Lloyd with 109.
JD Gyms is next with 105, then it jumps to Fitness First with 93, Nuffield Health with 92 and Virgin Active with 86.
Kantar analysis also contains a SWOT analysis, created based on scores, with advisory notes relating on standardised variables and each one is detailed below
More: www.kantar.com
