Evolution Wellness collaborates with Wexer to deliver Virtual Studio

Evolution Wellness has partnered with digital fitness leader Wexer, which sees Wexer become the group’s exclusive platform and third-party content provider in the roll-out of Virtual Studio – Evolution Wellness’s online fitness space – across all Evolution Wellness brands.

Evolution Wellness, which operates over 170 physical locations across six brands in south-east Asia, began offering online fitness classes in March last year following the lockdowns in its markets. Well over 1,000 online classes were delivered between March and December 2020, led by in-house instructors across the Fitness First, Celebrity Fitness and FIRE Fitness brands.

The group’s new partnership with Wexer allows it to further extend this online offering, establishing Virtual Studio as a core product across its full estate: Fitness First, Celebrity Fitness, FIRE Fitness, CHi Fitness, GoFit and Fivelements.

In addition to ‘as-live’ content from these brands, Virtual Studio will draw in premium third-party content, curated by Wexer from its global content partners.

All content, both third-party and self-created, will be delivered via a white labelled Wexer Web Player embedded in Evolution Wellness’s member-facing app. The Web Player will be branded Virtual Studio and will be accessible via single sign-in to the app, which forms part of the operator’s proprietary member management software solution, CIRCUIT.

Evolution Wellness Director of growth and innovation, Nad Myan notes “this will ensure a seamless, branded, ownable member experience both in- and out of club.”

Content and user experience will be carefully tailored for each Evolution Wellness territory, with Wexer creating nine different variants of the platform – for Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, as well as for three local languages. Each version will pull in only the relevant content for that territory, both from the Wexer library and from Evolution Wellness’s in-house production.

Myan adds “Wexer’s world-class platform, with its unparalleled reliability, allows us to focus on what we do best – creating compelling member experiences – while leaving it to the global expert to support the vital but invisible back-end.

“Partnering with Wexer also guarantees strength in the depth of our Virtual Studio content offering, thanks to an exceptional on-demand library to complement our own live content.”

Evolution Wellness Chief Executive, Simon Flint explains “Evolution Wellness has taken a long-term, strategic approach to online provision. As part of that, we acknowledge the need to monetise digital content. Partnering with Wexer to create our own-branded, flexible, monetisable platform is an important step in implementing this strategy.”

Sam Aldred, head of APAC for Wexer adds “It’s exciting to see a group of the size and success of Evolution Wellness recognise the need to develop a full digital gym offering to work alongside its existing physical sites. We expect to see many others follow this example.”

Wexer Chief Executive, Paul Bowman concludes: “2021 will unquestionably be the year of the hybrid model for club operators. We are thrilled to be working alongside Simon and his team at Evolution Wellness in creating a solution that delivers against the needs of its members and the business alike.”

For more information visit www.wexer.com

For more information about Evolution Wellness, portfolio brands, and services, please visit www.evolutionwellness.com.