Club Industry: WORKOUT ANYTIME Gets National Exposure with Blockbuster Film

Fitness club brand WORKOUT ANYTIME will get national exposure when the blockbuster film 'Mother's Day' hits theaters this weekend. In the film, Jason Sudeikis plays a WORKOUT ANYTIME franchisee and Jennifer Aniston, who plays his love interest, is a member at the gym.

When COO Mark de Gorter heard about a movie shooting in Atlanta and featuring a health club, he didn't know the plot-line, but was excited for the opportunity to be a part of the project.

"We showed them our facility here, and they just loved it – they loved the layout, they loved the color scheme, they loved the size, they loved the name," de Gorter told Club Industry. "One of our trademarks is a red and grey checkerboard floor that is an element of all of our clubs. They really felt that was something that was interesting and would pop nicely, too."

After touring other clubs Open Road Productions chose to film their health club scenes at a WORKOUT ANYTIME facility in Alpharetta, near the company's headquarters. The national brand exposure is exciting for the 106-unit franchise brand, the crew even created extra branded signage to feature in the film.

"It (the sign) looks so good we just kept it in the club," de Gorter said. "They just did a great job of exposing our brand in a way that was fun, made a lot of sense and was very authentic. To us, it was the ultimate example of art imitating life. Jason plays a franchisee, Jennifer plays a member and that's exactly the way things happen in our world."

WORKOUT ANYTIME created a marketing strategy to maximize exposure with a sweepstakes and various prizes and promotions leading up to the movies release.

"[Mother's Day] is going to work really well, we believe, to create some strong awareness to Workout Anytime," de Gorter said. "It drives a lot of traffic to the clubs, it gives our members a real nice sense of pride seeing their club on the big screen and, of course, we think the franchisees will have something unique to rally around as well."

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