Q&A: Gymshark’s chief brand officer on how it’s becoming ‘one of the biggest brands on the planet’

Let’s talk about Gymshark’s new ‘We Do Gym’ campaign and the process behind it.

“I think we have the potential to become genuinely one of the biggest brands on the planet. Definitely one of the biggest brands to ever come out of Britain. And we’re very, very ambitious about that.

“I don’t really think you can break out and become that really big brand on the global scale without people being able to spot what makes you uniquely you. Athleisure and fitness all seem to mould into one and the same right now; we’ve seen lots of brands all claiming to do everything. So this is almost a reactive rather than a proactive move, where everybody seems to be sort of going that way, and we’ve said: ‘No, we don’t want to do that.’ We decided about two years ago to get very, very deliberate and purposeful about what and who we are. 

“In terms of process, we wanted to do away with any kind of flowery, random language to say who we are. So all that clever strategising and those agonising rewrites of brand blocks all ended up funnelling down to these very, very simple three words: ‘We Do Gym’, which I think beautifully encapsulates load and loads of hard work behind the scenes.” 

How has Gymshark managed to crack the social media game? 

“I think there are two things there. Number one, we’re sure that we are the gym brand. So, like when you’re trying to fit in at school, we turn up in every conversation as the gym guy or the gym girl. And we make sure that we’re always getting that across. We’re not just jumping on random hashtags because they’re trending. It’s almost like, can we add our gym spin to this? If we can, then we get involved. If it’s a Swifty thing, if it’s Barbie Oppenheimer, we’re putting a gym spin on it. 

“The other one is remembering that social media is still social – it’s the water cooler chat, it’s the conversation that’s already going on.

“And, in my humble opinion, I think marketeers sometimes turn up on social and try and kick off a new conversation. It’s like rolling into the water cooler at work and ignoring everything that everyone else is talking about and telling them, ‘You all need to do this.’ But, while you’re trying to kick off your new hashtag on Monday morning because it syncs up with your campaign calendar, everybody else is talking about Barbie Oppenheimer or the Eras tour or the Met Gala.

“So don’t force the conversation. Social media is social. Join in the conversation and see if you can add your flavour to it.”

What do you think are the three reasons behind Gymshark’s success today? 

“In the very early days, we were very much the customer. We were young, social media-hungry, fitness fanatics, who were scratching our own itch. So the right answer to serving your customers was so obvious because we were the customer. I think we’ve held on to that.  

“Those early years taught us that when you’re really connected to culture, it really helps you make decisions at work. So we reference TikTok as many times as we would Nike’s marketing strategy. We very much pushed that to the forefront of our understanding of the consumer and we consider that just as important as any other channel.

“When we started, nobody was ex anything. I didn’t come from Nike; Ben didn’t start a Reebok and then come and do something else. We never knew the rules of the game. We made up our own rules, so I think that was instrumental.

“And because we didn’t know any different, there was just a ton of accidental bravery, or call it naive optimism. When people say, ‘Oh, but what if it goes wrong?’, we always seemed to say, ‘Yeah, but imagine if it goes right.’ That’s kind of emblematic of the way we think.”

What’s next in Gymshark’s growth story?

“Gymshark has always done well offline. We’re an ecommerce brand and connecting with our community in real life has always been a part of our strategy.

“We turned that up even more when we opened our first-ever flagship store on Regent Street. We’re about to do it again in Westfield Stratford. It feels like we were in League One and we’ve just been promoted to the premiership, with some of the most iconic brands on the planet.

“So you can expect us to see us breaking out of where you’ve typically seen Gymshark in the past and see a more 360º version of Gymshark. We want to take the ‘We Do Gym’ message and put that in a lot more places and be a lot more explicit with it.”