Major changes for BMF Events
Smoke, mud, water, obstacles and hills...
The Brief - for almost as long as they have run outdoor fitness classes, British Military Fitness have organised events for their members. From ski, surf, and sailing trips to cross country runs and the Three Peaks challenge. In recent years they had also started to organise expeditions to the jungles of Borneo and ascents of Kilimanjaro. As a result, they have rebranded their events team as ‘BMF Adventures’ and created a separate website and identity.
The issue was that firstly that these ‘adventurous’ events were hugely time consuming to organise and not as profitable as mass participation, lower cost challenges in the UK. Secondly, from competitor feedback, and the undeniable web traffic statistics, it was clear that the ‘Adventures’ brand was not engaging either members or non members. BMF needed a rethink of their event brand strategy.
On your marks, get set…
Working with the BMF Events team it was agreed that as the fitness event market was becoming more and more cluttered with new and established competitors, it was more important than ever that every BMF event had a clear brand identity and promise, so that potential participants could appreciate immediately what they were being offered.
Go!
It was agreed that going forward, each event would have its own brand identity, and that the BMF brand would serve as an endorsement of quality and reassurance. Using this endorsement model, we were able to ‘dial up or down’ the military emphasis for each separate event. For example, the cross country runs, featuring as they do obstacles, mud, smoke canisters and BMF instructors shouting encouragement have an undeniable military atmosphere. So they became ‘The Major Series’, featuring a uniformed, moustachieod officer who dares potential runners to take on his challenge.
Conversely, resort fitness holidays at a luxury complex in Spain, branded SunFit, have virtually no references to BMF, and everything about the brand communicates health, fitness and wellbeing. Over the last six months, we have launched three new brands for BMF, and given a facelift to the presentation and positioning of those events, such as The Three Peaks Challenge, which the client decided to retain.
Since the change in strategy, and the application of the new event led brands, sign ups to events have improved across the board, and in addition many people have joined BMF for their local fitness classes, once they've experienced one of their extremely well run events.
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