An All-In-One Recreation Centre Is Coming Home
American colleges have a sporting culture like no other.
From modest gyms to million dollar buildings, they offer students everything including weight rooms, football, basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, swimming, volleyball, spin classes, and even trips to Everest's Base Camp.
Their facilities are dedicated to sports and athletic training, making them a world leader in recreation centres.
Australia has a huge health & fitness culture, but there is nothing like this in the market.
Part 1: The brief
This client had never ventured into the fitness realm.
They had a huge love for sporting culture, valued their own fitness, and fanned over the Los Angeles Lakers.
They wanted to create a multi-sporting venue that had everything, from gym to pilates to wellness to recovery to allied health to basketball to pickleball (and more).
Their brief was to create a brand that is:
All-encompassing
Accessible, affordable & best in class
Centered around the ‘sporting spirit’
A legacy that could become a household name
Within 3 days, the name hit me.
Part 2: The response
The name: Housed
The tagline: Your home for everything
The only: All-in-one recreation centre
That: Provides luxury & affordability under one roof
For: Anyone and everyone
In: Australia (for now)
Who want: The best facilities, community & accessibility
In an era of: Premium boutiques, expensive healthcare & boring fit-outs
Part 3: The overview
Drawing inspiration from collegiate designs, Housed is set to be an Aussie first. Strength & performance gym, dry recovery, pilates, basketball, pickleball, communal wellness, coaching & allied healthcare. All under one roof.
An affordable yet luxurious second home for everyone, Housed gives members access to everything with the freedom to shape their own experience.
The brand values I created were:
A dream home: Where you can find it all in one place
Humans with heart: A team that has skin in the game and genuinely cares
Through the roof: A place where people can reach their very best
Doors wide open: No matter your training background, this is your house
These values act as the cornerstone of your brand and impact every aspect of your operations.
They inspire your team and clarify your mission. Never undermine them!
Part 4: The execution
Once the brand was established, along with the incredible Housed team, we hustled within a few months to create the following:
Brand identity
Facility design
Membership packages
Merchandise & apparel
Website infrastructure, design & build
Software integration for lead management & customer retention
Content production
Whilst you’re already here, take a moment to see how it all unfolded below.
Part 5: The facility design
Using pinterest (god bless this platform) and drawing inspiration from collegiate designs, we curated the look & feel of Housed.
We wanted the facility to feel like a campus, embodying an aesthetic that factors in sports, performance, dorm room vibes, and keeping it homely.
Once we cemented our facility moodboard, we then engaged a render company to bring the vision of Housed to life.
These assets were critical during our presales campaign, along with our kickass offer of $1 per week.
Check them out:
Part 6: The member experience
Next up, we determined what memberships we offered and how members would be able to interact with the brand.
Membership terms
One thing to note about gyms is that most operate in a very similar way. But we wanted to do things differently.
Most gyms have:
Lock-in contracts
Joining fees
Hard cancellations terms
Restricted membership hold times
As well as having a tedious process when dealing with membership changes, including a strong reliance on human resources to action a task on behalf of a member.
Housed is changing the game:
No lock-in contracts
No joining fees
Easy to cancel
Unrestricted membership hold times
All controlled via the Housed app
Membership packages
We then crafted these core membership packages:
Plus coaching & allied healthcare (pay per service).
Member engagement
We then integrated a lead generation platform to manage inbound leads, as well as a CRM platform that would allow us to offer the experience we wanted to provide.
This included a white-label app, allowing members to:
Check in effortlessly with just a tap (via bluetooth)
Manage personal details
Update payment info securely
Book into classes and recovery sessions in seconds
Pause their membership when life gets busy
Our core objective was to give members the freedom to shape their own experience.
Part 7: The presales campaign
To build hype for the first location, we strategized a presales campaign.
Why? To ensure we had a database of founding members before we physically opened our doors.
This presales phase was to open the gym, dry recovery & pilates, with the rest to follow later in 2025.
Here’s how we did it:
6 weeks of pre-promotion
Core offer of $1 per week for the first 4 weeks
All traffic directed to one landing page
Entertaining and excitable content across organic & paid
Influencer collaboration to maximise reach on new platforms
And the results?
Over 3,500 leads who secured the offer
Over 800k video views before opening
Opening our doors with over 900 members
…Keep in mind that this was for only one location.
Hitting over 900 members is an extremely high number for a gym opening, especially for a brand that is fresh on the market.
Never underestimate the hype you can create through storytelling.
You aren’t just selling a space, you are selling a feeling.
Part 8: The content production
Now the fun part.
Have a peek at some of the content we used to introduce the brand, create hype, entertain the crowd and attract the community we wanted.
This involved using specific music, narration, effects and graphics that defined the personality of the brand.
Brand teaser
First video, new channel, over 116k views.
Presales launch
A key partnership with NRL’s Mitchell Moses.
Real gym (coming soon)
No physical space? Work with nothing.
Merch release
We asked people to tag their friends to win merch.
Render facility fly-through
This one doesn’t need an explanation.
Real studio (coming soon)
Gearing up for our pilates studios.
Spotted in housed
Now you’re seeing the brand everywhere, how odd.
Haunted house
Couldn’t miss a Halloween special.
Website sneak peek
A quick showcase of our brand in the digital realm.
Graffiti artist
Don’t want to pay for a new billboard?
Facility fly-through
The first phase of Housed now open.
Opening day
Sharing the moment with our founding members.
What is important to take away?
No idea is completely original, but you can opportunize on something done elsewhere, make it better and bring your own flare to it
Centre the experience around your customer (always)
Don’t be afraid to amuse people (make them love you before they meet you)
Know your market (Aussies love to be entertained and humoured)
Interested in creating or elevating your brand? Reach out, let’s see where you’re at.
—
Brand: Housed
Head of Brand & Content: Alessia Murer
Head of Growth: Chad Ketting
Head of Member Experience: Tristen Cassar
Head of Sales: James Abboud
Brand Designer: Amber Dempsey
Video Editor: Chris Ramirez (Xander Media)
Website Build: Digital Architects
Facility Renders: NAM Visual Solutions
Digital Performance: Ben Strydom & Eric Cheng
Featured Talent: Mitchell Moses, Al Perkins, Leah Perkins, Daniele Mendoza, Jessica Quiogue