How will I start ‘The Health Hive’? – Design and Develop Workshop Challenge
As expected, this week we were to some up with a solution to last week’s problem we identified. Mine was healthy lifestyle and fitness community (check it out here). I already had a rough idea of want I want to achieve but I bounced around some ideas for a bit to see what the best answer for this week’s task was. So, I did what I do best, first I panicked a bit, then I started making short notes and lists of what I want to achieve. In the end, I remembered what we usually did at work whenever we were launching a new product – a 3hr Brand Sprint (Read more about brand sprints here and here). And everything just fell into place.
The Health Hive Brand Sprint
Introduction
The Health Hive is meant to be a hub where people from all walks of life who are interested in having a fit lifestyle can get together and share experiences, tips and progress. In addition, one can find advice, support, guidance and even contact details of various experts in the field of fitness.
The 20-Year Roadmap
[The 20-Year roadmap is an exercise to get yourself thinking about a bigger picture. It is not meant to be a definite plan, but rather to get into a mindset of how the potential brand will evolve, instead of thinking about the here-and now].
- Now: Start the platform (website) and populate it with content. Promote it on the major social media platforms and share it to major fitness groups.
- In 5 years’ time: Health Hive will be a well-known name in Malta with the fitness community and the ‘go-to’ place for anyone who wants a change for a better, healthier lifestyle.
- In 10 years’ time: Health Hive will be a leader in lifestyle change. Patent on the ‘The Right Mindset’ health program. In-house nutriition and fitness personnel will be part of Health Hive team.
- In 15 years’ time: Health Hive goes international. It will be endorsement by sports and fitness entities.
- In 20 years’ time: Health Hive will be a world leading lifestyle and fitness improvement program. It will be competing head-to-head with current fitness programs.
What, How, Why?
[Following Simon Sinek’s Golden circle concept, this exercise aim to identify the main purpose of the project. Identifying what is the main driver of the potential brand makes it more likely to succeed.]
- What? : I want to create a hub where people interested in fitness as well as people who want to get into this sort of lifestyle can find support, share experiences and find guidance to achieve their goals.
- How? : By providing help, guidance and support to whoever is willing to embark on such a change.
- Why? : Because I believe a healthy lifestyle is a mindset and that is a goal that everyone can reach.
Target Audience
The top 4 target audiences are:
- Introverts – whoever wants to change but is afraid of asking or do not know where to start.
- Heavy-set people – anyone with a BMI of +25 is considered overweight.
- People who think sports is not for them – from personal experience, I am terrible at sports, but learned that fitness is a different story.
- People who are already into a fit lifestyle – such people will help in populating the community in the beginning to get things running as well as serve as a catalyst to the growth of the community
Brand Values
The Top 4 Brand Values are:
- Inspiring
- Motivating
- Welcoming
- Open-minded
Brand Personality
[In a brand sprint, you are to position the potential brand in question between 5 pairs of brand extremes].
The overall brand personality of Health Hive is meant for mass appeal, rather than a select demographic. The brand has a friendly personality, aimed to make everyone feel comfortable and at ease. It is also relatively playful, but it does not mean that it takes this project lightly. As a health and fitness brand, it would still follow already set fundamentals when it comes to tips and advice, for there are principles that are set in stone, however, the the fact that the goal of Health Hive is to promote a holistic approach and that it is indeed a mindset ultimately, is it quite innovative in comparison to the usual ‘train smart, not hard’ mantra.
Competitive Landscape
[The Competitve landscape is the mapping out of competitors onto a 2×2 grid split into four extreme landscapes]
The Health Hive is to be expressive, innovative and modern, yet still have some familiar features that people can engage easily with and make them feel more at home.
To kick off this project, I would need a good database of fitness instructors, nutritionists and guidance counsellors. I included the latter as I would want to promote the idea of an all-round holistic approach to such a lifestyle change.
Making the Brand Tangible
Given the day and age that we are living in (pandemic aside), consumer needs an identifier. I figured that I should start off with a logo. Following the brand sprint I made (and a conversation with Stuart), it helped me put my thoughts into a better perspective and zero in on a solution. As far as the design goes, the name was quite easy to work with. Ideas were flowing. Below are some of the sketches I created. As one can see, I initially was going with a bee for a logo, but I figured that something more abstract is more fitting. Plus, given that the name of the community is The Health Hive, not Health Bee, I think that the final outcome was more fitting.
The final design is a combination of hexagons and the letter ‘H’. The hexagons were inspired by the name of course. However, I made the hexagonal links overlap to signify unity within the community, which is the ultimate goal of this project.
In addition, I also created a prototype for a website where it will be the hub were people and members of the community can access to find information and share experience and interact with each other.
The Health Hive Brand Sprint – Future Plans and ‘To-do’ list.
So, as already mentioned, the main aim for this project is to build a community where the common goal of the members is to have a fit and healthy lifestyle. Also, in order for this to work, I would need to identify the most used and latest social media platforms to link the main website and promote it further and more efficiently.
In addition, looking at what is on the market already will help in zeroing a good unique selling proposition that people can easily understand. I know what I want to achieve from this, but I want to make sure that my intentions are translated correctly and effectively to the target audience. My selling point here is not to make it yet another health and fitness website with a library of workouts and meal plans that simply dictate what you should do. I want this to be a place where community members can share experiences like a big family.
