Hotpod Yoga, the UK’s biggest yoga business, has unveiled a new look and feel for the first time in the business’s 12-year history, with the rebrand delivering a stunning new visual identity, tone of voice, and an overall brand positioning that captures what it is that makes Hotpod Yoga so special. Supported by the launch of a brand new app and a new-look website, the new brand identity has rolled out across Hotpod Yoga’s 61 yoga studios nationwide, capturing the evolution of the brand whilst clearly highlighting the personality and individuality of their studios and the amazing people behind them.
Launched in 2013 by two school friends, Max Henderson and Nick Higgins, Hotpod Yoga started life as a pop-up at various London locations, its original logo a design gifted by Higgins’s dad. After securing widespread attention, the idea of a Hotpod Yoga franchise was born after a customer wanted to take the same proposition to her hometown in Wales. This move also inadvertently filled a gap in the market to make hot yoga accessible across the country, at a time when people were starting to seek out activity that not only benefitted them physically, but was also supports them mentally.
12 years, 400k customers and 61 studios later, the Hotpod Yoga brand – also now a B Corp certified business – no longer reflected the incredible and uniquely immersive customer experience offered within the company’s patented pod.
Turning the dial up on a typical yoga class and deepening the effect, the Hotpod experience brings together soothing heat, dim, glowing lights with a distinct and ambient purple hue, calming beats (specially curated and licensed for the brand), and evocative scents (also made exclusively for Hotpod Yoga), designed to relax and revitalise. This all takes place in the cocoon-like environment of the pod, a setting that transports its customers a million miles away from the everyday, restoring both body and mind.
“After speaking to loyal customers from our studios across the country, it became clear that our brand was no longer reflecting the depth and richness of the Hotpod Yoga experience. Our new visual identity is all about bringing the best bits of that experience to the forefront of the brand; it’s warm, welcoming, immersive and full of deep purple hues, centred on the amazing feelings that we’re all so familiar with when you step out of the pod.” says Max Henderson, co-founder and CEO of Hotpod Yoga. “It’s been nearly two years in the making and we couldn’t be more proud of it; it’s a strong and beautiful visual identity, combined with the personality, individuality and localism that’s so important to our studios.”
Working with creative agency Two Times Elliott, the rebrand has resulted in a new visual identity and brand voice, which embodies the unique Hotpod Yoga experience. The identity focuses on translating the sensorial and uplifting in-pod experience across the brand, while the voice reflects the many everyday benefits that Hotpod Yoga has on its community of users, all of which is underpinned by extensive customer feedback. Two Times Elliott also supported on the new app and website that has been developed, seamlessly integrating key information about studios and classes, and streamlining the booking process for mobile users, in line with the new branding.
“At the start of this process we spent a lot of time understanding the people and culture of the business – the unique Hotpod Yoga experience, the diversity of customers from across the country and the many reasons why they choose Hotpod,” says Mark Pavitt, Strategy Director at Two Times Elliott. “In really connecting to this we were able to create an authentic and considered representation of what that looks and feels like for today, and how this can help shape what is a really exciting future for the business.”
Within the rebranding process, not only was every single element of the Hotpod experience considered – from the temperature, humidity and cocoon-like environment, to the sounds, class sequences and scent – but the Hotpod community also remained at the heart of the creative, which features some of the business’s own teachers, a further illustration of the brand’s inclusive and community-led proposition.
“This new branding marks a real step forward for Hotpod Yoga,” adds Henderson. “In the 12 years since Nick and I started the business, we’ve learnt more about ourselves as a brand – what people know, love and value most about Hotpod. Above all, we hear how extraordinary the experience is – the warm, friendly welcome delivered by our studio owners and teachers, the deeply calming, immersive space that the pod creates, and that unmistakable feeling as you emerge after a class. This is at the heart of our new identity.”