Bally's Total Fitness

Bally total fitness originated as an average health and tennis club in 1962. Who would have thought they would be where they are today. Like many other major companies sometimes it pays to be in the right place at the right time. Today they are one of the major companies in a 14 billion dollar health club industry. “They are the third biggest health care chain behind Curves for women and the YMCA”.Currently they have around four million members and 420 facilities. They currently have operations in 29 states including Asia, the Caribbean, and Canada. You may be wondering why you don’t see that many Bally Fitness Clubs; the reason for this is because they run the business under 6 different names. The other clubs they own include “Bally Total Fitness, Crunch Fitness, Sports Clubs of Canada, Pinnacle Fitness, Bally Sports Clubs, and Gorilla Sports”. Bally total fitness currently employs 23,500 staff members, 6,700 group instructors, and 3,500 personal trainers. These numbers are including the clubs they own that are under different names.

What many people don’t realize is Bally’s Sports clubs is only apart of the company. Along with fitness centers they also have their own products. They have an extensive line of exercise equipment ranging from medicine balls to free weights. However it does not end there they also have a full line of supplements including weight management products, performance supplements, and energy enhancers. There exercise equipment is only available for sale online however there supplements can be purchased at super markets and nutrition stores.

It is not uncommon today to see companies misstate their earnings. As we know this is an illegal activity that has put companies under such as Enron. This is not something that makes your company look good and is not worth getting caught for. Well “Bally’s got into the mix in early 2003 when they were forced to restate their earnings for the current period”. Their stock price collapsed and needed help in a hurry. They decided to get a new CEO which was a well traveled man known for reviving companies. That man was Paul Toback , he knew something had to be done quickly, so he decided to come up with new advertising efforts in 2004. Those advertisements proved to be extremely successful and they will continue these same types of advertisements in 2005. During this time they have also created strong partnerships with some of the biggest companies in the world. These companies include Gatorade, Kraft, Pepsi, Unilever, and Colgate.

Here at Bally’s we are trying to attract males and females ages 18-40. We feel that this group of people is the most self conscious and they are interested in getting into shape. However in this direct mail campaign we have decided to target the northeast part of the country. In this region we will advertise heavily in the suburbs in the cities, because this is where we feel we will get the most responses. Along with targeting an audience of 18-40 we would like to offer it to middle class people making a minimum of 35,000 a year. By doing this we hope to get serious inquiries, and not people that come for a month and leave.

Bally’s Total Fitness is a full service health club offering a wide range of many different amenities such as, aerobics, basketball, boxing, child care, circuit training, dance, elliptical training, free weights, group cycle, kick boxing, martial arts, locker rooms, nutrition program, personal training, physical therapy, plate loaded machines, pool, racquet ball, running track, sauna, snack/juice bar, spa, stair climbers, step aerobics, treadmills, weightless program, women only section, and yoga. There is no other franchise of gym’s that offer as many of these services. This is why Bally’s Total Fitness has an advantage over its competitors. A few of their competitors are Gold’s gym, 24 hour Fitness, Sports clubs, and local gym’s.

Bally’s mission statement is “to be your total fitness resources by providing quality service and outstanding faculties to help you achieve results YOUR way”. They sure do offer many facilities and the part that they say “YOUR way”, is because there are nay different types of people who join Bally’s for different reasons. This is why the company offers many different types of classes, meal plans, and exercise programs. The classes that they have are beginning, advanced, and expert. They say to spend 2 weeks on classes at beginning level then 3 more weeks at advanced, then to go to expert. Most of the time they have the same trainers for each class so that you get a relationship with the trainer. The meal plans that they offer are for people who are dieting and tell them to eat any where between 1200 to 1500 calories a day, and then they have meal plans who are trying to gain weight and build more muscle where they say to eat between