generic Equinox Taps New Chief Marketing Officer
Well before the pandemic cast a cloud over much of the world, Equinox understood the importance of designing clubs that offered a space between work and home life, and not just free weights and fitness classes.
In recent years, the company edged into hospitality with a luxury hotel in New York City’s Hudson Yards. It also serves occasional fitness-focused day trips for members. Now Equinox has brought on board Jeff De Korte, a seasoned executive in the travel and hospitality sectors, as chief marketing officer.
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He succeeds Peter Giorgi, who had held the role since April 2021.
With 106 fitness clubs, Equinox recently unveiled a Studio City, California, location and is planning to open a Washington, D.C., outpost. The company does not share membership figures publicly.
Big on brand experiences, De Korte most recently served as senior vice president of consumer marketing for Caesars Entertainment, leading its advertising, digital products, acquisition and marketing. Like Caesars, which has hotel, entertainment, food and beverage, gaming, retail and attraction brands, Equinox also has multiple services beyond membership such as in-club apparel shops, an online store, a lifestyle site, personal training, spa offerings and more.
“If you look at the core tenets of the Equinox business — the club experience, our personal training, our classes, our retail — these are all independently, really strong businesses. A lot of our focus going forward will be [about], ‘How do we put together a plan that continues to grow each of those businesses, while leveraging the Equinox brand that sits on top of them?” De Korte said.
De Korte officially started at the company Monday and in his new post he is heading up all marketing strategy development for Equinox Fitness Clubs and Equinox Media, as well as the marketing execution for Equinox’s physical and digital brands.
Equinox is part of the privately owned Equinox Holdings, which also operates SoulCycle, Blink Fitness, Pure Yoga and Equinox Hotels. Equinox Holdings’ investors include executive chairman Harvey Spevak, principals of The Related Companies, L Catterton and Silver Lake. Like many health clubs and athletic-focused resources, Equinox Holdings has been trying to build back up after being hit hard by the pandemic shutdown.
Separately, Moody’s recently affirmed Equinox Holdings Inc.’s debt rating and downgraded the company’s Probability of Default Rating from Caa3-PD to Ca-PD.
Well aware of how consumers’ work-life patterns have changed in the past five years and more drastically in the past few years, De Korte said, “The core to our lives is our connections to community and to the people, who matter. Equinox plays that role for a lot of folks.”
De Korte said people are spending more time in the clubs and utilizing the space beyond fitness as a place to be and to commune. Work-friendly interiors have some powering up with laptops even more than before. “You certainly see more people spending time in the space. As a brand, Equinox is thinking about how to respond to that and continue to create these spaces that are important to people’s lives,” he said. “Certainly, there’s been a change in everything since COVID[-19]. The way our members use our clubs continues to evolve. One of my roles will be to help understand that and build a marketing and communications [program] that allows members to use the clubs [in] the best ways they need to or want to.”
Noting that Equinox has generated “record numbers” for membership in 12 of the past 14 months, De Korte said that shows that people are engaging again, returning to the clubs and they are “willing to spend.” Highlighting how much of his 25-year experience has been with travel-related companies with strong membership programs, the new CMO said he will be spending a lot of time thinking about the value of an Equinox membership and “What are the benefits and rewards that that brings to me?”
De Korte cited a huge opportunity for growth in how digital intersects with the club experience. “The in-club experience is core to membership at Equinox, but the intersection between digital and the in-club experience is really interesting — not as a replacement one for the other — but the two coming together to enhance the overall membership experience.”
Looking further out to 2024, Equinox is aiming to relaunch Explore by Equinox to offer travel options to members. Noting how the strength of the brand enabled it to extend to a luxury hotel, De Korte said there are opportunities in other areas as well.
