Val Morgan has announced its VMO Active network, consisting of more than 4000 digital screens in 770 locations, will be reactivated by 15 June.
The announcement is welcomed as the easing of restrictions across Australia allows fitness centres to reopen broadly in the coming weeks.
Asia Pacific’s leading health and wellness organisation, Fitness & Lifestyle Group, conducted research to explore gym-member sentiment during the pandemic which revealed three in four gymgoers plan to return to their branch within the first week.
“The health club environment clearly delivers many physical, social and mental health benefits and the closure of these venues has really proven how much we value the experience of working out together,” Paul Butler, Managing Director of VMO said.
In line with government health regulations, VMO’s health club partners are taking measures to help keep people safe by enforcing social distancing, limits on class sizes and strict hygiene practices.
“While we will update the market as we receive insights on audience traffic and engagement through our proprietary audience measurement tool, DART, we anticipate numbers will return quickly to pre-lockdown levels as more Australians return to their local fitness venue and further restrictions are lifted over the coming weeks,” Butler said.
To celebrate Australia getting back to fitness, VMO has designed a limited number of tailored launch packages which will be showcased to agencies over the coming weeks. When fitness centres closed, VMO launched an online version of its popular Active Nation program, allowing media industry employees to partake in two free 30-minute fitness sessions per week, led by Fitness First personal trainer Kristy Curtis.
The program also featured exclusive motivational talks from professional athletes, hosted by FAN+.
“We are pleased we were able to stay engaged with the media industry through our Active Nation program while gyms and health clubs were shut and are very much looking forward to welcoming them back into venues for group workouts soon,” Butler said.
