Fitness Gyms: the next target of the Connected Society Investment Theme
One of the nation’s hottest gyms isn’t a gym. And it’s free.Fitness Blender, an online-workout company run by personal trainers Kelli and Daniel Segars, is the most-watched fitness channel on YouTube and just passed 4 million subscribers. That’s more than the number of members at 24 Hour Fitness, one of the nation’s biggest health-club chains.Fitness Blender’s Four Tips for Home WorkoutsKelli Segars, co-founder of Fitness Blender–the top fitness channel on YouTube–shares her tips for getting the most out of working out from home.Fitness Blender’s YouTube channel and corresponding website feature more than 500 workout videos, most of them filmed in the Segarses’ garage north of Seattle. Against a plain-white background, they sweat through basic but challenging moves, including the occasional stumble.“These people look normal,” says Haley Wilson, a 20-year-old fan in Fort Erie, Ontario, who last year had Fitness Blender’s logo tattooed on her left arm. “They’re like your fit best friends who can help you be healthy, too.”
Read Full Article (subscription required): A Fitness Empire Quietly Rises on YouTube – WSJ
The decline of brick and mortar retailers has been well documented — here on the Tematica Research website and by others — leading to what can only be called the Death of the Mall. Driven by what investment theme we’ve coined the Connected Society, the power of high-speed internet connections and always on, always connected device such as smartphones, tablets and even TV’s now, it’s frankly just become much easier to shop online. Not only that, but cheaper too.
But it’s not just shopping that’s feeling the thematic tailwinds of the Connected Society. Trips to the gym could be a thing of the past too, as the rise of interactive fitness videos and training sessions are on the rise, as detailed in the Wall Street Journal article above about Fitness Blender. Combine the videos, with Fitness trackers and devices like the Peloton stationary bike, and why deal with the traffic to the get the gym and the prospects of embarrassing yourself as you trip and stumble through a class?
