About Ovo:
The Cirque du Soleil continues to amaze in 2009. I just came from Ovo, Cirque du Soleil’s new show last week and was completely blown away. By the Concept. By the costumes. By the music with strong Brazilian influences (samba, sung in portuguese, congas and many percussionists are used). The whole universe that Ovo creates puts the “experiential” marketing definition to a different level. You can visualize some scenes in the Cirque du Soleil’s Official Youtube Channel. I liked the fact that one of the main character is a voluptuous black ladybug. Totally fell in love with the concept, as well as of the Egg, which is called Ovo in Portuguese.
Another innovation is Jukari: Fit to Fly workout program that was developed in Montreal by the Cirque du Soleil and Rebook teams. In that video, the Cirque du Soleil‘s Senior Brand Director Joanne Filion and Katryn Ley Reebok Brand Strategy explains the Inspiration that brought the jukari concept to life. The name comes for a word dialect meaning “to play”. You can follow Jukari’s Youtube channel: Jukari.TV.
The concept around Jukari:Fit to Fly is “fitness that makes you feel like flying”. It is a microcosm of “innovation” in the way that the workout is articulated from the Ceiling Up, not from the ground up. It seems disruptive in the perspective that it is not directly in the Cirque’s Core Business Model to start workout techniques at the gym level. As well, the brand association between the Cirque du Soleil and Rebook gives credibility to that initiative while opening the realm of the Cirque to the street, to any woman who wishes to live 0.1% of the life a Cirque athlete. According to the statistics displayed, they say that Jukari appeals to 61% of women. I would be curious to know if this data is Canadian-based or US-based?
Time will tell us if this will just be a trend, or if the Cirque/Reebok will launch a series of these and evolve the concept through time. If it is disruptive and if it is strong, we should see other “workout techniques” be pulled off from gyms and a stronger adoption of that new concept.
UPDATED: In fact, the official press release states that The workout is the first in a series of initiatives to come out of a new, long-term partnership with globally renowned entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil. Then we should get ready to see them take a big “chunk” of the exercise “pie”.
Sustained or disrupive innovation?
According to the concept of Disruptive Innovation, developed by Harvard ‘s Clayton Christensen, Jukari might be on the disruptive side.
Disruptive innovation, on the other hand, will often have characteristics that traditional customer segments may not want, at least initially. Such innovations will appear as cheaper, simpler and even with inferior quality if compared to existing products, but some marginal or new segment will value it, according to Innovation Zen Blog.
Disruptive innovation, [...] describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors.
The trending here shows a growth of interest of Jukari in the search volume. Still, I would love to know what are the competitors: Tae Boxe (kind of old), Power Yoga? Let me know if you have more ideas.
Trends in the workout industry
Interestingly, Tammy Emma Pepin, Tourisme Montreal’s blogger has shot a video of her first Jukari Workout in Montreal. This shows the begining of the trend… I am wondering if that will only please the hip hipsters going to gyms like Gym du Plateau (my gym) and MMA or to a much broader audience?
Jukari already has its Twitter Account going on: twitter.com/Jukari
