How Happy Melon Studios Promotes Mental Wellness with On-Demand Classes

Building a video library for customers to use can be a considerable undertaking, but it's worth it. Just ask Happy Melon Studios in Melbourne, Australia.

Empowering mental health

When Happy Melon first started in 2015, there wasn't anywhere else in Melbourne to practice meditation. Meditation as a whole wasn't very widespread, so the group of people who came together to start Happy Melon knew that there was an open market—and tons of possibility to impact the lives and mental health of their future customers.

"We thought there was an opportunity there to open up a studio that was centred around meditation, and helping people slow down," Simon Davey, co-owner of Happy Melon said. "We attached meditation to everything we do, even as fitness classes that with the short landing practice and end with a Savasana-like practice."

Happy Melon’s focus on mental health and wellness means that mindfulness is in every class in both of its locations, from Pilates to dynamic fitness (plus yoga and traditional meditation classes). This inclusion of mindfulness helps drive Happy Melon’s mission, which has evolved from focusing on meditation to improving the overall health of its clients.

"We shifted our mission," Davey explained. "At first, our mission was to demystify meditation. And that's still paramount to what we're doing, but it's a new mission to help people live with peace and ease."

Building a virtual brand

Just as Happy Mission’s evolved, so has its business strategy. The studio was required to shut down not once, but twice, from COVID-19 spikes in the city of Melbourne. Due to these closures, Happy Melon’s changed again—this time becoming a virtual bastion of mental wellness.

"Now we're fully online, which we'd never anticipated," Davey said. "But, there's never been more need for what we're doing and what other studios are doing. There's never been a more important time than right now to prioritize mental wellness."

To provide access to meditation-focused fitness, yoga, and Pilates whenever Happy Melon customers needed it, the brand decided to develop an on-demand video library. This library would not only offer 24/7 access to quality instruction but also helped recoup some of the profits lost to studio closures.

To do that, Happy Melon turned to Mindbody.

Growth against odds

Since building the library, Happy Melon has found more and more customers switching from a live class only membership to one that includes the recorded videos, which Davey says is just fine.

Happy Melon grew the number of clients watching its videos consistently month-over-month, including from July to August 2020 when the studio had a 66% growth in customers using the platform.

“I get that doing a class when it suits you, rather than having to log into a scheduled class can be way more convenient,” Davey said. “So it's definitely a convenience thing. And people were starting to be able to attend far more classes while it's online.”

How much more?

In August 2020, videos in Happy Melon’s video library were watched over 2,700 times—a growth of nearly 98% from video views in July 2020.

This increase in users and videos watched doesn’t just mean more exposure for Happy Melon. It also is driving revenue with the studio needs it most. Driven in part by its $80 per-month video-on-demand, Happy Melon maintained revenue to keep the studio afloat.

“We couldn’t have done this without the functionality and support of Mindbody,” Davey said. “It’s kept us ticking along at a very difficult time. We’ve got huge gratitude for Mindbody.”