When was the last time you saw a fitness center decked out like a garden? Well, potting soil and planters were in definite abundance at the one-year anniversary party for the Roche Fitness Center, a facility built for the several thousand employees of Hoffman La-Roche. Not only did the center’s management develop a creative garden-themed promotion that drew more than 250 employees (about 8 percent of the eligible population) to the event, the Plant Your Roots in the RFC promotional campaign continued to attract attention from potential members months after the one-day celebration.

In fact, in the two months following the event, membership increased by 7 percent, and membership cancellations fell by 40 percent compared to the two months prior to the event — a savings of $823.46 in revenue for the center. “Beyond tangible statistics,” reports Nanette Loftus, program manager, “our reputation for quality programming and staff professionalism has resulted in more new hires, visitors and never-before-exercisers touring the facility.”

So how did the center’s staff come up with the idea to integrate gyms and gardening? Anniversary organizers had been puzzling over ideas for a cost-effective, activity-oriented event that would achieve two major goals: First, recruit Hoffman La-Roche employees to join by demonstrating the center’s expanded member services, its high level of satisfaction among current members and its staff’s expertise; second, show the center to be a major player in the National Employee Health and Fitness Week. When one of the event coordinators stumbled across small, inexpensive flower pots at a local garden shop, the Plant Your Roots theme was born.

One of the day’s main activities centered around visitors planting seeds into terra-cotta pots to take home or, ideally, take back to their offices where other employees would see them. The activity was designed to represent the opportunity to “plant roots” in the Roche Fitness Center, to “grow” and learn about health and fitness and to allow staff to “nurture” future members into healthy lifestyles, according to Loftus. The fitness center staff thought the plants would be the perfect reminder of how the body grows, develops and changes with exercise, targeting people preparing to, but not yet exercising.

Attendees at the anniversary event loved the plant idea too. For a month afterward, an average of six Hoffman La-Roche employees dropped by the fitness center each day to update the staff on their little seedlings’ growth. The plant initiated conversation about the facility, making anniversary attendees unsolicited marketing spokespeople.

The two other main projects that day were a Goal Balloons activity and a Garden Hunt. Visitors were asked to write down their health and fitness goals on a ticket, attach it to a balloon and tie it to a piece of equipment of their own choosing. Not only was this a great way to give the facility a festive atmosphere, it allowed newcomers to wander around and look at the equipment on their own. The Garden Hunt was an equally unintrusive scheme for getting visitors to see everything the center has to offer without taking them on a sales tour. Attendees were given tickets with rhymes to help them identify certain pieces of equipment and their functions.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.