July 22, 2015

Michelle Bridges' 12 Week Body Transformation

Michelle Bridges’ 12 Week Body Transformation programme used the Brightcove Video Cloud to reach users across desktop and mobile. This allowed them to focus more on content over technology. Brightcove tell us a little more

Michelle Bridges’ 12 Week Body Transformation (12WBT) is a unique online 12-week exercise, nutrition and mindset programme created by leading Australian personal trainer Michelle Bridges.

Since its humble beginnings in 2010, 12WBT has become a household name across Australia. Born from the demand for Michelle Bridges’ unique brand of personal training, 12WBT was founded with the objective that Bridges would be Australia’s personal trainer.

12WBT has been a resounding success in Australia, and in 2014 reached a significant milestone—one million kilos lost by members. The innovative Australian brand has recently launched in the US, with the intention of replicating the success it has achieved down under.

From the outset, it was evident that online video was a key medium that would underpin 12WBT, enabling participants to undertake the programme regardless of their location.

Speaking about the success of video in helping to forge that human connection which has made 12WBT so successful, Bridges says, “We use so much video content for my 12WBT programme—it really helps me deliver my message.”

“Video lets me be wherever my members are, and I can share advice about all sorts of things; from emotional habits, all through to their nutritional and exercise programmes. Think about all the different exercises I can show my members on video, as well as actual workouts where they can train with me. I really am their personal trainer.”

The video strategy was simple. Create great content that focused on the three pillars of the 12WBT programme: exercise; nutrition; and mindset.

The growth and momentum of the programme has been such that, since 2010, round-to-round signups have increased by 5000 per cent.

Situation

Joady Weatherup, Video Content Lead for 12WBT, explains that online video has been the lynchpin of 12WBT since the very beginning.

“The purpose of 12WBT is that Michelle can be everybody’s personal trainer, and video is the most effective medium to achieve that purpose,” says Weatherup.

“By mid-2011, the business had reached a point where the success of the programme was causing headaches from a technical point of view, including serving videos to our members.

That success was fantastic for 12WBT—a clear sign that we were doing something right and needed to take our capabilities to the next level in order to build the brand.

“We identified pretty early on that we needed a video solution that would integrate easily with our site’s CMS. We wanted to focus on the content and not the technology. Moving to a dedicated hosting service would actually put us in a position where we could be freed up to think about increasing the range of relevant video content we offered our members.”

12WBT has a very loyal community of members who are active on the site’s forums and in social media—the official Facebook page has more than 800,000 followers.

“The majority of our published videos are products behind the paywall—like workout videos, explainer videos, and mindset chats with Mish. But the real growth area in video for us is in marketing and social media channels. Video is a great way to communicate with our community — sharing information, members’ stories and inspiration with them that, in turn, is shared. It’s important in a business that is growing so rapidly in terms of content and usage that our video platform can keep pace with us,” says Weatherup.

She explains that the production approach to each type of video is determined by not just the content but the platform or device that the video is most often viewed on.

“Our 45-minute workout videos tend to be watched on a tablet or a laptop, the 15-second exercise demonstrations are viewed most often via smart phones, while the ‘Mish mindset’ chats are videos most often watched on desktops or tablets. And customers viewing expectations are the same no matter how, where, or when, they are viewing.

Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT chose Brightcove Video Cloud to meet customers’ viewing expectations and maximise its reach to both existing and potential community members. With Video Cloud, 12WBT is able to increase reach, using the Video Cloud Smart Player to intelligently detect and deliver video to audiences across desktop and mobile.

Video Cloud’s social media sharing feature has enabled the 12WBT team to focus on building the 12WBT community through social channels, such as YouTube and Facebook, as well as on the site. 12WBT has hundreds and hundreds of long- and short-form video clips, and Video Cloud’s CMS made it easy for the 12WBT team to sort, manage and organise its entire media library. Leveraging Brightcove’s robust APIs, 12WBT easily integrated the Video Cloud CMS into its existing CMS and publishing workflow.

Results

Online video has proven a highly effective tool for forming the human connection so critical  to the success of Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT. It provides a way for Michelle to  offer a level of inspiration and support to members previously only possible during in-person training sessions.

Since launching in 2010, 12WBT has become a household name, with round-to-round signups growing by 5000 per cent. Through the social media sharing features of Video Cloud, the 12WBT team has engaged its community through social channels, such as YouTube and Facebook. Its 800,000 Facebook fans, 2.6 million views on YouTube, and an increased average engagement score to 80 per cent, support the effectiveness of online video as a marketing tool for 12WBT.

The Brightcove Video Cloud solution has also provided reduced workflows and has given the 12WBT team control over the publishing process, allowing them to focus on producing exciting, valuable and high-quality video content for its members, regardless of device. With members viewing the videos across tablets, smartphones and laptops, the ability to deliver the same quality content across every screen is absolutely essential to meeting their customer expectations and keeping them engaged within 12WBT.