A new script

In his first full-length interview with SportsNation as ukactive CEO, Cameron Saunders outlines how he plans to use his experience in shaping consumer behaviour and storytelling to help make fitness a mainstream activity, while also focusing on financial sustainability, member engagement and lobbying for government support

Cameron Saunders is rather unusual when it comes to a trade body leader: he has no background in the industry he will be representing. But that could be his biggest strength.

The new CEO of ukactive brings with him experience from advertising, media and entertainment – industries built on understanding consumer behaviour, creating compelling brands and persuading people to change their habits. It is a perspective that could prove crucial as the physical activity sector looks to tackle one of its biggest challenges: persuading more people to get active.

GROWING THE SHARE

While he might have not spent his career in fitness, he is well-versed with the state of the industry and the enormous opportunities within it. “The industry has enjoyed strong growth in recent years and there is still significant untapped potential,” he says. “Our vision is to get membership [the percentage of over-16s that are members of a health and fitness club] to 20% by 2030. But if I’m honest, I’d hope we will be more like 25% by then.”

Saunders is conscious that growth of that magnitude, however, will not come from simply attracting more of the same customers. Instead, he believes the sector must further broaden its appeal to groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in fitness environments – a journey, he says, the sector has already begun.

“You do run out of 25 to 34-year-olds sooner or later,” he says. “For me the key is to keep driving uptake with older populations and provide appealing messages for more diverse audiences. It’s already happening – you go to gyms today and you will see people look a bit different than 20 years ago. There’s a different range of people coming in.”

We need to really understand the consumer insight. What are the little micro-blockers on the journey that stop people getting into fitness?

CHANGING BEHAVIOURS

Saunders has spent much of his career trying to understand why people make the choices they do. Having worked extensively in advertising and consumer-facing businesses, he sees parallels between persuading someone to buy a product – whether it is to watch a film or join a gym.

One of the biggest opportunities he identifies is improving the industry’s understanding of people who do not currently participate. “I think it’s still a bit of a blind spot,” he says. “We know what we do is really valuable. We know it’s really important. But most people are sitting outside that world.”

Too often, he argues, the sector assumes that presenting people with evidence of physical activity’s health benefits will be enough to drive participation. “We don’t necessarily instinctively see it because, in our experience, we don’t get it,” he says. “We don’t understand why people don’t work out. Surely they know if they don’t work out they’re going to die earlier, or have 10 fewer years of healthy lifespan?”

The reality, he says, is that human decision- making is rarely that rational. People make choices based on emotion, identity, convenience and social influence. Understanding those motivations, rather than simply presenting health facts, could be key to unlocking further growth.

“We need to really understand the consumer insight,” he says. “What are the little micro-blockers on the journey that stop people getting into fitness?”

Saunders’ focus on consumer behaviour reflects his previous experience in the entertainment sector. He started his career in advertising in one of the top London ad agencies back in the mid 1990s – a period he refers to as “a kind of post Mad Men era”, but one where TV advertising would still be something people would talk about down the pub.

“My role was a consumer strategic planner, so I was focused on research and insight on what drives and motivates consumers,” he explains. “The goal was to create marketing that changed behaviour, attitudes and minds.

“A lot of our decision-making is based on emotion. One of the clients I worked with during my advertising years was a beer brand which, in a blind test, nine out of 10 would say tasted better than a leading premium brand. But once the labels went on, the result was reversed. So emotions can even change a person’s perception of taste.”

“I’m fascinated by consumer behaviour, and that emotional response. And it’s relevant to what we are trying to do. Answering questions like ‘what motivates people?’ and ‘how do we drive consumer change?’.”

NEW AUDIENCES

The principle of altering attitudes, Saunders suggests, is highly relevant to physical activity. He draws a parallel from his past experience: Orange Wednesdays, the hugely successful, two-for-one cinema ticket promotion which he worked on. The concept helped change consumer behaviour and attracted large audiences into cinemas in the middle of the week, during quieter trading periods. It convinced people that cinemas weren’t just for Friday and Saturday nights.

When it comes to physical activity, Saunders says that the challenge is not simply persuading people that exercise is good for them. Most already know that. The challenge is making participation appealing, accessible and socially desirable.

“Everyone knows exercise is an investment and you should be working out,” he says. “You should, also, eat your greens, you shouldn’t drink alcohol, you shouldn’t have coffee after midday – and a million other things to keep healthy. But why do people not do so? Because we are human beings. We’re lazy, because we’re biologically designed to be idle – we’re meant to conserve energy whenever we can. So it’s not a criticism as such, it’s just a fact.

People

Instead of relying solely on health messaging, Saunders believes the sector should think more like successful consumer brands, focusing on identity, belonging and experience.

“People enjoy things they identify with,” he says. “Social groups, communities, social pressure – most of us are herd animals.”

People enjoy things they identify with – social groups, communities, social pressure – most of us are herd animals

BUILDING A MOVEMENT

That thinking also shapes Saunders’ vision for ukactive itself. While many industry bodies focus primarily on advocacy and policy, he sees an opportunity to create a broader movement that captures public imagination. Among his ambitions for his tenure is to create campaigns capable of attracting sponsorship, generating mainstream media attention and, most importantly, bringing new people into physical activity.

“I want to start looking at what our Orange Wednesdays could be,” he says. “Perhaps it’s the National Fitness Day. As an awareness day, we know it’s a popular campaign among consumers and our members, but it has so much more potential. Perhaps we make it into a month-long campaign of activity where we genuinely unite the nation. We get people out, achieve genuine media coverage, secure the right sponsorship and make it part of driving hundreds of thousands of new members into gyms – and then convert and retain those into life-long members.”

Whatever the sector’s “Orange Wednesday” moment ends up being, it is clear that Saunders believes that the ultimate objective is not awareness alone. Rather, it is converting participation into long-term behaviour change and sustainable membership growth.

Among the trends Cameron Saunders believes could reshape the sector over the coming decade is the ongoing growth of GLP-1 medications. While much of the public conversation has focused on weight loss, Saunders sees a much bigger opportunity for the fitness industry.

He supports the view that GLP-1s are not an alternative to exercise, but also sees the medications as a potential gateway for healthier lifestyles for many. “As more people begin the programmes and experience improvements in confidence, mobility and overall health, our members have an opportunity to support them on the next stage of their journey,” he says. “The real opportunity we have is helping people turn weight loss into long-term health gain.”

MAKING FITNESS POLITICALLY IRRESISTIBLE

A focus on campaigns and widening consumer awareness doesn’t mean that ukactive won’t continue to bang the drum for the industry when it comes to Westminster. The inroads and recognition achieved in the corridors of power during Saunders’ predecessor’s,

Huw Edwards’ tenure, will be fully utilised – and broadened. Saunders says strengthening the sector’s relationship with government remains a “key priority”.

For him, politicians, health leaders and policymakers now understand and largely accept the evidence linking exercise with improved health outcomes. The challenge, he says, is turning intellectual agreement into practical action.

“At the moment we’ve won the intellectual argument,” Saunders says. “People get that gyms are a good idea and that fitness is a great. What is missing is emotional and political momentum.

“I want MPs and political leaders to be saying, ‘I want to be part of that. I want to be seen supporting that’.”

His ambition is for investment in the sector – both private and public, from facilities to community activity programmes – to become politically attractive and publicly popular.

Rather than being viewed as a more niche issue affecting a segment of the population, physical activity should become something politicians actively champion.

“We want gyms and physical activity to be a populist thing to support and to grow,” he says.

Saunders graduated with a degree in social anthropology from King’s College, Cambridge. He began his career at WCRS, a prominent London-based creative advertising agency known for creating highly memorable campaigns for brands like Warburtons, BMW, and 118 118. While there, Saunders helped develop the Orange brand, which transformed the UK mobile market with the emotive promise of a bright, optimistic and wire-free future - ‘The future’s bright, the future’s Orange’.

From advertising, he moved to entertainment and film and spent more than 20 years in leadership positions at high-profile organisations such as Sky, Paramount, Showmax Africa, Channel 4 and 20th Century Fox UK, where he was Managing Director.

He also served on the Board of Cinema First, the UK’s trade body for the film industry, where he played a lead role aligning rival cinema operators and film studios around shared priorities, convening senior leaders through structured roundtables, and translating discussion into tangible outcomes.

People

The real opportunity we have is helping people turn weight loss into long-term health gain

“We have an election in about three years’ time. By then, when candidates and MPs are doing the rounds and talking to constituents in the hope of votes, we want them mentioning that they are funding more gyms and supporting local leisure centres to help people, young and old, get into fitness and exercise and to get everyone healthy.”

GETTING THE FOUNDATIONS RIGHT

It is clear that Saunders arrives in his new role with a vision, enthusiasm, energy and plenty of ambition for the future. He is, however, equally clear that his first task is to strengthen ukactive’s existing foundations. A major focus during his early months will be member engagement.

“The top priority at the moment is going out and listening to – and engaging with – members,” he says. “I want to both get to know our members and ensure that members clearly understand the value they receive from the organisation, whether through lobbying, market intelligence, guidance, standards or sector representation. We want people to understand what they are paying for and what the value of being a member is.”

As part of that process, he wants ukactive to become even more relevant to smaller operators and independent businesses, many of whom face different challenges from larger national chains. He believes communicating this value proposition to organisations of all sizes is critical to ensure the organisation itself is financially sustainable and able to deliver further value in future.

CREATING A SHARED STORY

Talking to Saunders, perhaps the clearest insight into his leadership philosophy comes from the way he talks about storytelling. Rather than focusing on targets, structures or processes, he repeatedly returns to the importance of creating a narrative that people believe in.

For him, effective leadership starts with creating a compelling vision of the future. Once people believe in that story, they can work together to overcome the barriers standing in the way.

“What I want to try to do is work out what our story really is,” he says. “What’s the narrative that we all buy into and feel enthused by and want to be part of?”

There is, however, space for those in the sector to create their own story lines. “Equally, I wouldn’t want to micromanage,” he says. “You want people to buy into where we’re going and then create the space for them to work out how they contribute.”

The approach is perhaps unsurprising for someone who has spent much of his career helping organisations communicate with audiences. In his new role, Saunders will aim to do the same with a story that delivers the holy grail – to attract more people to become more active, more often.

What’s the best piece of leadership advice you’ve ever received? You can’t be too enthusiastic.

Which leader do you most admire and why? Hans Snook, visionary leader of Orange - a leader who had a very clear vision for the future, and built a team that manifested it from brand through to tech platform and customer services. Orange went from zero to almost £30bn in value in less than 5 years, a real trailblazer of its time.

What book, podcast or resource has most influenced your thinking recently? Sleepwalkers: The Treaty of Versailles is a great read. Versailles failed not because the people were stupid, but because everyone arrived with a private script, a public ego and no shared theory of what success actually looked like. The fitness sector isn’t so different - technically capable, full of smart operators, but often negotiating in parallel rather than in concert. Our role at ukactive is to align around a common interest and objective – more people, more active, more often, and removing those barriers to greater success.

What’s one misconception about the fitness/physical activity sector that you’d like to challenge? That it is “not for people like me” - there really is something for everyone to enjoy.

Complete the sentence: “If ukactive succeeds, the UK will be...” ..healthier, happier and wealthier.