Power
In conversation with Jasper Bron
MASTERS regularly speaks with prominent figures from the business world. This time with Jasper Bron, Managing Director Technogym Benelux. The conversation covers current trends in fitness and plans for 2023, including the opening of an experience center in the Netherlands.
MASTERS often talks to prominent figures from the business world. This time with Jasper Bron, Managing Director Technogym Benelux. This includes current trends in fitness, but also plans for 2023. For example, a real experience center will be opened in the Netherlands.
Leading in the market
“In 1983, Nerio Alessandri built the first fitness equipment in his garage. Today, Technogym is the global market leader in software and hardware solutions for fitness and wellness. Technogym has been voted official supplier of the Olympic Games eight times and works with the most prestigious sports clubs in the world, such as AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid and Chelsea in football, Ferrari in Formula 1 and Luna Rossa in sailing. About 55 million people worldwide use Technogym products every day. When I started at Technogym fifteen years ago, the consumer market was still in its infancy. If you looked on Funda at the time, you would sometimes see a cheap device in the bedroom that was mainly used as a coat rack. In recent years, especially with Covid, this market has boomed: more and more people are setting up a gym at home with good equipment. Another development is digitalization. In the past, you got on a treadmill, pressed start and that was it. Nowadays there is entertainment, content and you can save everything you do. Where the gym used to be the center, now there is a hybrid ecosystem: people not only go to the gym to exercise, but also exercise at home, with the physiotherapist or on holiday in the hotel, take a walk, go swimming … And everything is recorded. If I am on a winter sports holiday in Austria and get on the cross trainer early in the morning, I log in to the machine and my Personal Trainer at home can see what I have achieved. If I then go skiing, I put my smartwatch on ski mode and he or she can also see what I have done.”
Digital platform
“Our mission is to make people happier through healthy food, a good mindset and exercise. You only have one body and you have to take good care of it. I have to train at least four pears a week. My sports equipment is always in the car. When I visit a customer, I sometimes stay for a while to train. I apply the 80/20 rule: 80 percent attention, but at the weekend I like to drink a beer and prepare something tasty on my Green Egg. Technogym's focus is on exercise, but we can also set up a whole vitality program for a company. We can also offer nutrition and mindfulness on our digital platform; This can be done via the Technogym app, but we can also engage partners for this. A distinguishing component of Technogym is that everything we market has a digital component and we offer content for both our partners and the end user. Basically, most people find fitness boring, but you can make it attractive with features. Nowhere is retention as bad as in the gym industry. That's why you have to make it fun, then people will come back.”
Community
“With the Technogym app you can select all kinds of programs and workouts that suit the equipment you have at home. Everything becomes tracked and you can share it in the community. You can also compete against each other by, for example, virtually cycling up the Mont Ventoux on our Technogym Ride indoor bike, including integration with training apps such as Zwift, Strava or Rouvy. That's one side of the story. The other side is that our operators – gyms, corporate fitness, physiotherapists – can also communicate with their members with the platform we offer them and, for example, offer challenges. We organize the challenge ourselves once a year Let's Move for a Better World, where we let our partners compete against each other in a fun way: who will generate the most moves within two weeks? Very nice! Clubs stay open 24 hours, bring in DJs and provide other entertainment to get as many people as possible to the gym and participate in the contest. It is also possible to 'donate' your own exercise to a good cause.”
Bestsellers
“Our bestsellers, in addition to the Technogym MyRun, Elliptical and Ride, include the Unica, a multi-power station for maximum muscle activation, and Technogym Bench, an all-in-one functional fitness bench including dumbbells and elastic bands (see photo; ed.) , which allows you to do countless workouts. The plans for 2023? We are going to move into our new office near Rotterdam with a large experience center. We will also open a boutique in Amsterdam and come up with some new innovations, including an adjustable dumbbell set with sensors in it. They keep track of exactly what you do, how fast you do it, everything is monitored and content is also provided via the Technogym app. And for performance-driven people we come with a new treadmill with a large screen and new features. Technogym is the best you can buy. It's about quality, design, attention to detail... Most major chains and parties work with Technogym. Yet we have one brand awareness of only 6 percent. We still have ground to gain there. In that respect, the hotel market is an important market for us: that is where our target group comes, where they can also experience our products. That is why MASTERS EXPO is also interesting for us: half of the Quote 500 are there. We put the Technogym Kinesis there and some cardio and strength equipment. Our industry for private individuals is an enormous cross-pollination. If someone has a villa built, they need someone to build a swimming pool, someone for a gym, another party for a nice sound system... Everything comes together at MASTERS EXPO.”
Curious about discovering all Technogym innovations? View the website here.
MASTERS MAGAZINE
The winter issue of MASTERS was created in collaboration with Jordi van den Bussche. Many will know him as YouTuber Kwebbelkop, but he has been working hard as an entrepreneur for some time, as he explains in the Great Interview. What is new is that his company JVDB Studios offers to do social media marketing and short format content marketing for other companies. “They can also figure it out themselves, but we cracked the code.” Jordi gives a platform to like-minded entrepreneurs such as Jay-Jay Boske, Demy de Zeeuw, Chahid Charrak and Marcella de Bie, and discusses developments surrounding games, crypto and NFT: “Just as bitcoin turned the financial system upside down, will that also happen with gaming.” This extra thick winter issue also focuses on Lengers' first own ship, an interview with Corendon CEO Atilay Uslu, specials about the new BMW 7 Series and Samsung foldables, and - exclusively for MASTERS! – an interview with Max Verstappen.
