VML nets Virgin Active digital task

Health club brand Virgin Active is overhauling its digital strategy by handing a £2m account to VML London to redesign and rebuild of its flagship website as well as boosting members’ in-gym devices.
The agency won the business following a pitch process that included AKQA, among others. The brand has also worked with Wolff Olins and Brothers & Sisters, although it is not known whether these relationships will be affected.
Virgin Active has been briefed VML to reshape the brand’s entire customer journey, from an interested prospect to an engaged member, throughout the lifetime of their membership.
The launch of the platform will coincide with the opening of Virgin Active’s first fully ‘connected’ health clubs in the UK, with digital technology built into every step of a member’s journey, from arrival, to the gym floor.
Future phases of the experience will include highly personalised fitness planning, mobile training and workout features, as well as out of gym digital services and content.
Virgin Active chief information officer Andy Caddy said: “We are embarking on an exciting change in our digital customer journey to reflect the changing needs and habits of our customers as they become more mobile and more connected to technology in their fitness routines.
“As the UK’s market leading health club chain, our ambition is to provide our members with a digital experience that establishes us as the number one digital gym. VML are aligned on our purpose and customer vision and their digital ambitions for the brand mirror our own. Together we are committed to building a first class digital presence to give members an experience online that matches the quality of our clubs.”
VML London managign director Chris Wood said: “There is the opportunity to use digital platforms and communications to enhance Virgin’s customer proposition, delivering digital services within and outside the clubs that connects the customer to the brand, their own data and the wider health and fitness community. Our aim is to make digital a key competitive advantage for Virgin Active within the year, and we have the client, talent and appetite to do just that.”

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