McFit founder, Rainer Schaller, has announced a new brand for his sprawling fitness empire.

In an exclusive interview with HCM magazine, Schaller announced the company has rebranded as RSG Group, replacing the previous McFit Global Group brand. RSG stands for Rainer Schaller Global.

"We will use the new RSG brand to position ourselves as a global innovation leader in the fitness and lifestyle sectors," he said, speaking in an interview featured in the April 2019 issue.

Schaller said that although fitness and sport remain in the organisation’s DNA, RSG will keep pushing in other areas, setting "new benchmarks and providing momentum well beyond the areas of fitness, lifestyle and design".

"We’re focused on society and existing innovations, as well as constantly setting new trends," he said. "All of our concepts will focus specifically on our target groups: bigger, more limited and more exclusive on the one hand and, on the other, smaller, more individualised and more specific than we have ever previously delivered in our history."

The overall offering branches into such areas as design, lifestyle, art, fashion and architecture.

As well as McFit – the trailblazing low-cost fitness concept that has 1.95 million members across 225 clubs in Germany, Spain, Austria, Poland and Italy – RSG includes the John Reed Fitness Music Club, with its focus on music and DJ slots, John Reed Women’s Club (fitness and relaxation with a Scandinavian feel) and Cyberobics (which merges the real and virtual worlds with more than 80 classes filmed in breathtaking locations).

The company also owns the LOOX fitness planner app, McFit Models, a sports model agency, which gives members a chance to be featured and discovered, QI2 sports nutrition, the Tigerpool management agency for artists and designers, and the under-construction Mirai, a vast 55,000sq m fitness complex in Germany with no membership fees.

The need to retain a clear focus on the brand styles of each of these and RSG’s other brands calls for a special approach to creativity, said Schaller.

"We move at a very fast pace, which is why we have our own in-house agency to provide space for creativity and to put ideas into practice. A 30-strong team of copywriters, graphic artists, media designers and image editors are headed by our creative director to give our brands their unique look and feel. Our creative department supervises every project, from initial idea through to finished object. Every gym is individually and lovingly designed, based on the structural and architectural constraints, to reflect the specific brand."

To read the full article see the April 2019 issue of Health Club Management here