Insight
One of the biggest barriers for getting and staying fit is motivation. The growth in personal trainers and boot camps has tapped into this need but it often requires significant investment in both time and money and does not necessarily make fitness enjoyable. The Versus brand opportunity was to create a brand that makes fitness fun, motivating and addictive. This meant creating a brand that taps into gaming trends in both the virtual and real world to motivate, challenge, measure, learn and share.

Naming
Truly Deeply conduced a category audit and created and filtered names against a rigorous criteria to ensure they appealed to all the brand’s audiences, aligned to the brand strategy and could be secured for trademarking and web domains.

Versus was chosen as it epitomises the spirit of competition and gaming but did not specifically relate to a fight. You can verse each other or your own goals.

Strategy
“At the heart of Versus is the mantra that Activation Motivates Achievement,” says Michael Hughes, Strategy Director and Partner, Truly Deeply.

Measuring and tracking progress motivates people to achieve better results and achieve personal goals. Gamification drives fitness participation, excitement and commitment.

“This provides a potent differentiator that inspired us to rethink how a gym brand should look and behave with a focus on making it a new form of personal and social training that is fun and positively addictive”, adds Hughes.

Design Solution
“The power is in the name. It’s rare we have a name that inspires such as strong graphic visual property,” says David Ansett, Founder and Chief Creator of brands, Truly Deeply.

Commonly accepted as an abbreviation for Versus, ‘Vs’ provided a starting point for the identity design.

“The font was deliberately selected for its gaming culture appeal. This combines with a powerful visual language that captures visual cues from both sport brands and gaming trends,” adds Ansett.

Deliverables
Truly Deeply provided strategic brand and design solutions for Versus including a competitor and market decode, brand strategy, naming, identity design and visual identity development.