ZOOM Media gives advertisers access to an affluent and active audience of 25+ million gym members who spend an average of 75 minutes on each visit across a network of over 3,500 health clubs.
The Place Exchange team spoke with ZOOM Media’s Lance Fanguy and John Shelby.
What’s your role at ZOOM Media?
Lance: I am the Senior Director of Operations and Technology. I oversee our field Operations team responsible for installations and network functionality within our 3500+ partner gyms and our Traffic/Ad Ops team which handles inventory management and campaign booking and scheduling. I am also the lead for our SSP/DSP partners and work closely with our Product Development team on our programmatic connections.
John: As the National Senior Account Executive for Programmatic Sales, my primary responsibility is to identify sales opportunities while supporting, managing, and fostering relationships with our SSPs, DSPs, DMP and direct client partners.
What are some recent company and personal milestones?
Lance: ZOOM Media recently partnered with Kantar for impression measurement and in doing so, completely overhauled our measurement process to provide the utmost granularity and transparency in impression reporting at a greater frequency. We are able to show our clients exactly where gym traffic stands market by market as they reopen and help our clients make informed decisions based on reliable first party data. Personal milestone, my cucumber crop killed it this year.
John: Yes, we are excited to partner with Kantar to deliver audience data by gym location, daypart, and demo. On a personal level, I now make a wicked grilled trout on wood planks, as well as any custom cocktail that you can imagine.
Which verticals and brands do you work with most?
Lance: There are the obvious endemic brands that come to mind when you think of fitness and leading a healthy lifestyle, but we work frequently with other brands and verticals that our audience indexes very high for such as vacation travel, auto, finance and wine/low-calorie alcohol beverages. Let’s be honest, you hit the gym to justify the wine, right?
John: In addition to the verticals Lance mentioned, campaigns from CPG, QSR, pharma, and retail all see a high ROI when connecting with our Generation Active audience. Specifically, brands such as Coca-Cola, La-Z-Boy, Fiber One, Walmart, Home Depot, Lexus, among others have done well.
What data points do you have on the ZOOM Media audience?
Lance: Generation Active is the name of our audience. It consists of anyone who exercises 2 or more times a week, not necessarily in a gym, it can be at home or in a park. Regardless of the environment, this audience shares the same values on health and wellness and places it just underneath family and friends on the level of importance in their lives. ZOOM Media has spent years talking to Generation Active, we are experts at communicating with this hard-to-reach, early adopting group.
John: Generation Active’s average gym-time (75 minutes) is often longer than their screen-time with the most popular social media networks. Gym members are a valuable audience on the path to purchase: 86% of gym members run errands after they leave our partner health clubs; their average HHI is $105K; 58% are more likely to be professionals; and 40% have children in the household.
What is something you wish more brands and advertisers knew about OOH?
Lance: Despite the one-to-many nature of impression delivery, DOOH measurement can get quite granular and there is minimal waste. We see the pain points that buyers constantly encounter with fraud from other outlets and the need for transparency in reporting. ZOOM Media can provide that transparency and investment security.
John: Plus, DOOH media that’s programmatically enabled is highly targetable, and allows for bidding in real time.
How has ZOOM Media benefited from a partnership with Place Exchange?
Lance: The most useful benefit that I have experienced so far is the PX team in general. Everyone on both the sales and tech sides are quick to collaborate and communicate with us. The team dynamic is great between both companies, and we value the comradery.
John: Agree, working directly with the PX sales team is a huge benefit. The communication, the ability to strategize together has been very helpful for both our teams. They are truly a pleasure to work with–the people make the difference!
What are your predictions for the health club industry?
Lance: I feel that the health club industry will rebound in the back half of 2020 as clubs in all markets are allowed to open safely and as people are wiser in general about social distancing. The gyms by and large are vast entities where social distancing can be practiced and traffic can be regulated easier than most indoor facilities. It is more important than ever to stay healthy at this time, and gyms are a key part of that equation.
What are your predictions for Digital Out-of-Home?
John: I think the future is bright for programmatic DOOH as we educate clients on the technology and benefits, and drive adoption of the channel. As buyers continue to adopt a one-to-many approach accompanied by granular and transparent measurement solutions, programmatic DOOH buying will play an even larger role in reaching relevant audiences, and become standard in a digital buyer’s omnichannel strategy.