Irvine, CA – The online fitness boom times have arrived as social media influencers and online wearables and software companies amass a massive following.
Traditional gyms have used a bag of tricks with membership discounts, relentless email reminders, and maybe even discount prices from a small retail group or juice bar.
But online companies are creating their own incentives to keep customers coming back to borrow from the technologies found in video games.
This is the subject of a study by academics, including Behnaz Bogd, an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine who specializes in information systems.
Huge social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter encourage sharing with buttons or emojis, a technology companies can rely on.
But Bojd focused on the competition, specifically the leaderboards that list the rankings of all entrants. Rankings like this have always been a staple of video games, from the pinball games in the corners of the rails that have held a numerical record of the best performing players.
But what kind of competition is the best?
Bogd looked at two types: diet competitions, where people tried to lose the most weight in percentage terms, and fitness competitions that recorded weight loss.
“We’ve seen that for diet competitions, people don’t perform well in small-volume competitions,” Bogd said. “If small group size is a proxy for intense competition, then it’s really not working for diet competition, but actually working for exercise goals.”
Bojd took it even further: “Our data shows that competition only works with exercise and with diet is counterproductive.”
The study sticks to a narrow concept, but keeps the details general. While it focuses on competition, it doesn’t delve into what exercises people do or how often. Nor does it capture the specific nature of diet challenges. The participants themselves reported their results and chose which competition to take. Some may have done more than one.
But Bojd said the data could apply to established companies such as the Apple Watch, which have boosted fitness offerings on their App Store. She said that they can market family competitions, which are directly consistent with her findings and which competitions in small groups can be effective.
Bogd said that fitness competitions have already gained prominence on social media platforms such as Instagram. Some offer financial incentives, which is another tool to entice customers to purchase fitness.
The fitness industry has had a turbulent few years, and new exercise applications and concepts are always emerging. With a low financial barrier to entry, even small benefits can be scaled up.
And now, the online fitness industry, which is a natural for leaderboards and competitions, is on an upward trajectory. Marketing and research companies differ in their growth prospects. Allied Market Research expects growth to nearly $60 billion by 2027 from just over $6 billion in 2019. The company attributes the growth to disruption in the traditional fitness industry and attempts by consumers to improve their time. Peloton Inc experienced a massive rise in stock value during the pandemic, which has since fallen and stabilized with the rest of the market.
His findings show they have one more trick they can rely on to get there.
