A Brand Wording Guideline shapes the voice of our new brand, strengthens the brand image and helps successfully convey Urban Sports Club's brand message. A consistent brand voice enhances authenticity and ensures the quality of content - so adherence to these guidelines is essential to maintaining a consistent brand personality across all markets and audiences.
As Europe’s leading platform for sports and wellness, Urban Sports Club is on a mission to inspire everyone to lead an active and healthy life with their flexible and diverse sports offer. Members can create an individual training plan catered to their needs by choosing from 50 sports across Europe. From fitness to yoga, swimming to climbing, or team sports to wellness - anything is possible. Plus, members can check in to their workouts easily from their smartphone or computer – no matter where they are. Together with partners and members, Urban Sports Club has created a diverse community committed to one unified goal: to work toward a world where everyone enjoys doing sports anytime, anywhere – a world of inclusive, sustainable sports.
Urban Sports Club is about more than just sports – we offer our members a new, better way of life. What’s more, our flexible, modern approach to fitness inspires people across Europe to join our movement. For us, sports aren’t the end – they’re the means. With our product, we give members the opportunity to discover new activities – and through this discovery, to embark on a path to a healthier, more active life. That’s why we always zoom out in our communication, explaining that the benefits go beyond sports to living your best life.
Urban Sports Club isn’t an exclusive club – we’re an open, dynamic community that supports and encourages one another. Everyone is welcome here – no matter who you are. Not only do we always write using inclusive language, we go above and beyond to emphasize that Urban Sports Club offers solutions for everyone, regardless of their age, needs, or fitness level.
We give members access to Europe's largest and most diverse sports and wellness offer – but that’s not enough. We also have a responsibility to inspire and motivate our members to continuously discover new, exciting activities. While our product is the key to unlocking a myriad of health benefits for our members, we want to also showcase how our offer helps them achieve an active and healthy life. In other words: it’s not just about what our product is, but what it can do for their lives.
When we’re writing, we try to say more with fewer words – our messaging is concise and precise. In a world where it’s hard to hold a reader’s attention, this approach helps us stay memorable.
Here’s an example from our B2B comms:
At Urban Sports Club, our app and website are the gateway to Europe’s largest, most flexible sports and wellness offer. But our technical touchpoints aren’t the core of Urban Sports Club, they’re just a tool we use. At the end of the day, Urban Sports Club is a community with people at its core. That's why we pay close attention not to confuse our offer with the technology we use. For example, we always say that someone checks in to sports “with the Urban Sports Club app” and not “with Urban Sports Club”.
With every piece of communication we create, we ask ourselves the following questions: What do I actually want to achieve? Who is my target group? What information is relevant? How can I get their attention? At Urban Sports Club, we always ensure that our content passes the “relevance test” and we’re agile enough to adapt it when needed. Because only when we understand what our customers want, can we speak in a way that reaches them.
Numbers are great – for one thing, they show us how fast our company is growing. But too many numbers can also be alienating.
For example, take this phrase: We offer more than 50 sports with over 10,000 partners. We often use this practical phrasing – and rightly so. But if we want to convince potential members, a more personal approach like this is more effective: With Urban Sports Club, you’ll find all the sports you love – and a visit to your favorite partner venues is just a tap or click away.
As an international company, we communicate using a mix of English and local languages. This means that in order to communicate as authentically as possible, we don’t translate – we transcreate. What’s the difference? Transcreating means translating for sense, meaning, and nuance, instead of creating a one-to-one translation. We also make sure that we’re using colloquial language in every market. Not sure if your translation fits? Try reading it aloud to another native speaker. Because writing like you speak is the best way to reach your audience.
Negative communication? Yeah, it happens – and that’s okay. Does that mean we write it in a negative way? No way. No matter how disappointing the news, we always try to find a positive spin. Why? When we’re positive, instead of being the company that’s letting our customers down, we’re the company that’s finding solutions. Here’s an example: Our digital platforms will be unavailable for the next few hours. The message? “We’re improving our digital platforms to offer you an even better experience.”
Let’s be honest: when it comes to marketing communication, there’s nothing more boring than an explanatory, lecturing tone. And at Urban Sports Club, we’re anything but boring. We’re engaging and fun – our love of sports means we communicate with passion and enthusiasm. We’re not afraid to be cheeky when the moment’s right – but we’re never snarky or forced in our writing. Bringing excitement, humor and joy to everything we write is key to staying relevant and memorable.
Just as our Brand Personality reflects who we are as a company, our Tone of Voice reflects how we speak. Think about it: in everyday life, we generally find people more trustworthy when they speak as their authentic selves. That's exactly why consistent, trust-inspiring language is so important to us as a company.
In practice, this means that the public can easily identify messaging that comes from Urban Sports Club. They’re familiar with our language and tone, and can recognize us without seeing our logo or company name. However, getting to the point where our brand is easily recognizable is a company-wide task. So, to help you understand how we communicate across all touchpoints, we’ve developed a Tone of Voice – guidelines that will help you learn to speak (and write) in the voice of Urban Sports Club.
Speaking with a unique, authentic voice is an integral part of promoting brand recognition and making our customers feel like they can relate to us. This means speaking with a tone and voice which shows that we understand what they care about. From day one up through today, we’ve never lost our sense of inspiration and discovery as we work towards creating a world in which everyone enjoys sports. This attitude is what we’ve defined in our “Urban Spirit”, which serves as the foundation of our Brand Voice Formula.
Our Brand Voice is closely aligned with our Urban Spirit – an important part of our brand DNA. It directly reflects our core values and provides us with actionable guidance that will truly inspire members, partners, corporates, our team – and society at large.
We believe in a world where everyone enjoys doing sports – which is why we speak with joy and enthusiasm.
We’re motivated to change the way everyone discovers sports.
We’re empathetic and approachable – we relate to our customers and partners and understand their needs.
Communication works best when adjusted to the person and the context – and the same goes for our Tone of Voice. Think about the different facets of your personality that come across in different situations – like how you adapt your language from a professional exchange to when you’re speaking to friends at a bar. So while the Brand Voice reflects our fixed personality, we adapt our tone to fit the context.
At Urban Sports Club, everyone should feel supported and welcomed – which is why we always project kindness and positivity. We speak with a smile on our face and always look on the bright side – even when we need to deliver bad news.
We’re so happy that you’ve decided to join Urban Sports Club. We’ll tell you a bit more about ourselves and what we offer.
Welcome to Urban Sports Club. We’re glad that you are now a member. Let us introduce you to our story.
Our offer is centered around the joy that comes from living an active life. We carry this spirit into our communications, speaking with an engaging, enthusiastic tone. We aren’t afraid to use humor, but are never sassy.
Jumping into the Isar river in the middle of February? It might seem crazy, but hear us out...
Are you one of those guys who takes Instagram selfies in a sleeveless shirt at the gym – but never actually works out?
Our tone is motivational – we cheer on our team and chant from the sidelines. We give a standing ovation after a win, or a "chin up" after a defeat.
It takes some serious courage to jump into the four degree water of the Isar river – but trust us, you’ll feel amazing.
We noticed that you haven’t worked out in a while – so move it, you lazy bum! Book your next class now!
Urban Sports Club offers members, partners and corporate customers countless opportunities to achieve their diverse goals. We know that everyone has unique dreams and objectives, so we don't exclude anyone by our words or tone.
Because everyone is unique, we’re providing you with a catered selection of classes we think you’ll love – including cardio, meditation, and more.
We have compiled a list of Live Classes for you. With these workouts, you'll burn a lot of calories so you'll enjoy losing weight even more.
We’re convinced of the positive impact of an active lifestyle – which is why we speak with enthusiasm – to impart our energy and passion to others.
You’ve come so far – we’re so proud of you and you can be too!
OMG, look at all your check-ins. Just another way we’ve made things better for you!
We communicate in a way that people enjoy listening to us, understand us easily, and never feel judged. That's why we make sure our language is positive, inclusive and concise.
Hi Name,
We get it – when life gets busy, it’s tough to find the right classes to fit your schedule. That’s why we’ve collected some of our favorite training classes and turned them into Videos On-demand, so you can work out at home whenever you want, as often as you want.
We've taken the time to put together some cool On-demand Classes that will help you achieve your goals, eat more consciously, and improve your wellbeing, and that you can easily watch anytime from home when you’re too comfortable to leave your house.
What we say, we say wholeheartedly. Being genuine means being true to our word, and owning up to our mistakes. Our members should feel they can rely on us and what we say. That's why we never promise anything we can’t deliver.
We know that this is an unpleasant situation – and we’re working hard to get you logged in as soon as possible.
Just sign up for a membership and you will achieve all your goals and feel better – guaranteed.
We put ourselves in the shoes of our members and we do our best to find solutions to their problems. We’re a club where everyone feels understood and supported.
Thanks for your message and sorry that you’re having issues. Please send a request and we’ll get back to you shortly.
Unfortunately, we cannot understand your criticism. Most of our members are very satisfied with the offer.
