Former tennis player Rene Moos co-founded HealthCity in the Netherlands in 1984. Aiming to make fitness accessible and affordable for all, HealthCity introduced HealthCity Basic in 2006, acquiring the Basic-Fit brand in 2010 before rolling it out into other European markets.
Basic-Fit is now Europe’s largest fitness chain, seeing a record growth of 51% in memberships in 2022, reaching 3.35 million members. The brand is also a newcomer to the 2023 Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Dutch Brands, ranking at #17 with a brand value of $986M.
Source: Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Dutch Brands 2023: Netherlands Fitness Brands 2022; France, Fitness Brands, 2022
Basic-Fit offer a low cost membership, which gives users access to all Basic-Fit gyms, plus extras on its app like home workouts, recipes, podcasts, training programmes, virtual group lessons, nutritional advice and personal online coaching.
Basic-Fit has a core purpose to make fitness accessible to everyone. The brand’s name itself is an acronym for its values of “be, accessible, smart, inclusive, and committed’.
Basic-Fit’s engaging adverts and strong physical presence across Europe make it a highly Salient brand, whilst its value for money proposition and core purpose meets consumers functional and emotional needs. This strong equity in turn supports the brands ‘Margin Opportunity’ to increase its pricing in the Netherlands and France.
In 2021 Basic-Fit launched its ‘Go for a fitter world’ sustainability commitment, revolving around three key concepts: healthy people, healthy planet, healthy community.
So far the brand is fulfilling this promise with a very low employee turnover, a roughly equal number of women and men employees and managers, a code of conduct for suppliers, and an extensive program of support for sustainability in local communities.
Our BrandZ 2023 report presents many success stories of other great brands. Curious about the highest rising brand since 2021 and and the value of building strong equity? Download the BrandZ 2023 report
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