Lululemon Zones In On New Well-Fest Trend With SWEATLIFE Festival

LONDON, United Kingdom — Lululemon is launching its first ever London festival in a bid to tap into the growing ‘well-fest’ trend and build on brand loyalty.

SWEATLIFE, due to take place at East London’s Tobacco Dock on Saturday July 30th, will include yoga, mindful development and fitness classes, led by influential teachers from across the globe, as well as some of London’s favourite studios including Core Collective, Frame, F45, Gym Class, KOBOX, Xtend Barre and more.

Servicing the mind as well as the body, the wellness centric event will also host a number of workshops dedicated to mindful development, with a Vision and Goals setting session led by Lululemon, while Soul Tonic from Jody Shield, The School of Life and Higher Selfie will all lead inspirational workshops to nurture and develop the head and heart.

“Our goal is to elevate the level of health in every community that we are in,” Lindsay Claydon, director of brand and community in Europe told Welltodo.

“Sweatlife: the festival was created to celebrate and showcase the phenomenal landscape of fitness studios, mindfulness leaders and lululemon ambassadors who contribute to the London community. We took inspiration from what would make up the best day of our lives: sweat, yoga, development, connection and a party with Grand Master Flash and turned it into a one-day festival.”

The emergence of a new breed of wellness events such as SWEATLIFE was highlighted by Spafinder earlier this year. Featured in the company’s 2016 trend report, Spafinder argued that the opportunities they offer for companies looking to showcase their brands on an enormous, at times literal stage, are invaluable.

However, rather than vying for vendor space or sponsorship opportunities at existing wellness centric events, leading brands like Lululemon are starting to create their own events from scratch, a trend that Spafinder says will continue to grow, as branded wellness events, including ‘well-fests’ take on a life of their own.

For Lululemon, not only does SWEATLIFE have the potential for the brand to reach a much wider audience, it also has the power to keep the brand’s existing community engaged, while driving customer loyalty.

Experiential and hyper-local initiatives have always been a huge part of Lululemon’s core business strategy. Positioning itself as a community, the company regularly offers in-store workouts, fosters relationships with brand ‘ambassadors’ including local athletes, instructors, and influencers, and partners with local events in store areas.

Having grown a powerful connection between brand and consumer, the introduction of events like SWEATLIFE are a natural progression for Lululemon, as they provide a setting in which the business can market the ‘brand lifestyle’ more organically.

However, the challenge will be retaining this type of hyper-local, innovative approach as the company continues to scale the business.