Yesterday I spent the afternoon looking around the Australian Fitness Expo down at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre in Darling Afternoon.

A friend, Murray Priestley, had a stand to promote a rather amazing exercise machine, the ROM Cross Trainer.

Shameless plug  – you can get all the details at www.QuickGym.com.au.

In just 4 minutes you can get either an upper body or lower body workout that will give you the same benefits as a regular 30-45 minute session at the gym.

Naturally, I tried it out for myself and I can confirm that it delivers on the promise.

The technology has been around for almost 20 years in the USA where it’s been very successful.

Anyway, that aside, I took the opportunity to take a look around the exhibition and see what was on offer.

Couple of things struck me from a marketing perspective…

1) There were dozens of stands and exhibitors and very few of them stood out from the crowd.  All the exercise machines looked similar, all the supplement and body building companies had the same sort of advertising and were making similar (generic) claims.  Not too much evidence of striking USPs or compelling offers.

2) It was a great way to get a snapshot of the industry and the competition. Now, I don’t do a lot of work for clients in the health and fitness market but if I did, this would have been a good way to quickly get a great deal of useful information.  I discovered all sorts of things I might not otherwise have come across.  For example, take the personal trainers niche.  Not only do they have their own magazine, but there’s even an institute.  There are also a number of companies providing marketing services.  Now, I could have found this out through Google searches, I’m sure.  But it gives a different perspective when you’re at an event like this.

So well worth the effort to get out and to the event.