A Healthy Brand

In 2004, Life Time introduced its burgeoning brand within a brand to bookstore newsstands, exceedingly competitive consumer environments in which multiple magazines vie for minimal visibility. For Experience Life, its thoughtful headlines and real-people cover images had to tussle with competitors whose reader-attraction strategies typically rely on “sure-fire solutions” and sculpted physiques. Nonetheless, Gerasimo notes, Experience Life has posted what she calls an “acceptable sell-through” on the 1,700 newsstands it inhabits nationwide. Not bad for a magazine catering to a broad-based audience.

“How many health and fitness magazines are coed and aimed at no particular age category?” Gerasimo says. “We certainly have a core audience of people in their 30s and 40s, but our overall audience is very broad. And typically, that approach doesn’t do very well on the newsstand—certainly not in the health and fitness category.”

Aligning with LOHAS

In fact, Gerasimo initially and very intentionally steered the Experience Life concept away from the traditional health and fitness market and into the direction of the so-called “cultural creatives,” a fast-expanding subculture identified some 20 years ago by sociologist Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson. According to Ray, author of The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World, cultural creatives are defined by psychographics, or shared value and personality traits, rather than traditional demographics. Cultural creatives value personal health and development and quality of life. They’re conscientious types who are concerned about social justice and the environment. And they’re early adopters—influential consumers who shape the larger culture.

Ray claims that cultural creatives crave “authenticity” from the products and services they consume and are intolerant of gimmicks, hype, superficiality, and misleading and meaningless messages. In the marketplace, the consumer attitudes and behaviors of cultural creatives became characterized as “lifestyles of health and sustainability,” or LOHAS. This consumer group, which is thought to include about one third of the U.S. population, represents nearly a $230 billion U.S. marketplace for goods and services focused on health, the environment, social justice, personal development, and sustainable living. What’s more, LOHAS consumers are brand loyal and prefer to do business with companies who share their values.

Gerasimo became acquainted with the cultural creative/LOHAS marketplace as she was developing her blueprint for Experience Life. “I realized that I am a core LOHAS consumer and a cultural creative, so this total light bulb went on for me, and I recognized that we are so being underserved by the biggest brands in the country,” she says. “And we are such a valuable population, not just because we are good consumers and buy a lot of stuff, but because we are influencers and early adopters that shape the general cultural attitudes. Where we go, other people will follow.”

Plus, by targeting the LOHAS consumers, Gerasimo reasoned, Experience Life would be staking out virtually unclaimed territory in the health and fitness–club marketplace. “This was an open and available brand position for us to have. There are other people that are doing the gimmicks and the hype and will always do it better than us. Those guys have their audience,” she says. “I presented an argument to [Life Time executives] that they should differentiate themselves and stand out on the basis of these higher-quality, more discerning attributes. And I said that if we stray from this and we go for the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, we would find ourselves in a very cluttered space from a marketplace standpoint. There just isn’t any room there.”