How Gymshark leveraged social media to become a sportswear unicorn

When Gymshark was founded in 2012, it sold bodybuilding supplements. But within the following year, founder Ben Francis pivoted the business to fitness apparel. 

With this shift, the brand entered an industry that’s more saturated than a beach towel in a pool—and where brands like Nike and Adidas are the competition. 

This week, Case Studied explores how Gymshark stayed ahead of the latest trends in social media to become a sportswear unicorn.

The Brief:

In the early days, Francis would sew and screen-print the Gymsharks clothing. His grandmother taught him how to use a sewing machine and he said his brother and a group of friends started off with a simple goal: make clothes they wanted to wear. Similarly, prices were set based on what they themselves were willing to pay. 

With a then-19-year-old founder and a rapidly growing online fitness landscape, it makes sense that Gymshark was one of the earliest adopters of the influencer marketing model.

The brand capitalized on the rise of Instagram and Youtube before jumping over to TikTok as it rose in popularity. It always developed content on social media apps with strong algorithms, ensuring the discoverability of their content. 

In its approach, Gymshark didn’t try to be like Nike or Adidas. It didn’t (and probably couldn't) put up the money to partner with professional athletes, who are used to multi-million dollar brand deals. Instead, it focused on fitness influencers with loyal, engaged audiences. 

At first, the brand was handing out free gear to weightlifting influencers, which helped it go from $450 to $45k in daily sales. It later started paying influencers as little as $500 a month to wear and promote their clothes in videos across platforms. The more it grew, the more creative it got in its strategy for engaging the online fitness community. 

The Execution:

On Jan. 1, 2018, Gymshark announced the Gymshark 66 challenge. The idea was that it takes 66 days to develop a habit and change your life. The campaign invited people to choose a goal for themselves and upload an initial photo on Jan 1 to Instagram or Twitter. Then, 66 days later on March 7, they uploaded the initial and final photos together. 

The winners of the challenge won a free year-long supply of GymShark goods. To sweeten the deal, Gymshark noted, “When we send out clothing to our athletes, every month, you will receive exactly the same product ahead of the public release.”

Folks were free to document their progress throughout the challenge or not. Participants were asked to tag the brand’s account and the hashtag #gymshark66 in their posts, which now has 813k posts on Instagram.

Gymshark collaborated with 6 influencers on TikTok, all of whom had over 1m followers: Wilking Sisters, Rybka Twins, Laurie Elle, Twin Melody, Lesotwins, and Antonie Lokhorst. 

Even though the participant’s photos were posted on Twitter and Instagram, Gymshark’s promotional push was focused on TikTok. Considering that TikTok was only founded in 2016, this was a bold move for a young brand—one that paid off.

The Results:

The 66 Days campaign drew over 45.5m views and 1.9m likes. It saw so much engagement that the brand continued it year over year before eventually evolving it into an evergreen challenge that participants can do at any time.

To participate in the challenge now, folks are asked to download the Gymshark Training app, which launched in 2019. There, they can sign up for Gymshark66, and choose not one, but three daily habits. Each goal needs to be based on one of three different focus areas—mind, movement, or nutrition. The app allows you to check off the habit every day, with a calendar to track the progress. 

Seeing a campaign evolve with this kind of longevity is rare but this particular campaign adapted seamlessly with Gymshark’s growth trajectory. The same year the Gymshark66 campaign launched, the brand opened its headquarters in Solihull and sales have been growing 62% each year since 2018. 

All this organic social engagement helped Gymshark eventually reach unicorn status in 2020 after the investment from General Atlantic, which acquired a 21% stake in the business, then valued at $1.45b.

The Takeaways:

There’s a lot to learn from Gymshark’s approach to influencer marketing. Here are a few:

1. Stay ahead of the (social) curve

Gymshark understands social media better than most brands and their early investments in Instagram, YouTube and TikTok paid off. Knowing that all three of those platforms provided the most discoverability without having existing followers, made them the perfect channels for a new market entrant taking on behemoths.

Stay ahead of trends as a marketer and your brand will be rewarded.

2. Creators, not influencers

While it’s easy to use creator and influencer as interchangeable terms, there is a nuance between them in that not all influencers are creators, at least not great ones. Gymshark’s investment in social media personalities that could create authentic and engaging content, regardless of their follower count, enabled them to tell their story compellingly.

Look for social partners that make amazing content, even if they aren’t the biggest, and your customers will get a fresh spin on your brand.

3. Communities drive loyalty

Gymshark’s 66 day challenge not only acted as great marketing for Gymshark but it created a vehicle for them to build a closer link to their customers and create a sense of community amongst them.

By encouraging their customers to post publicly and hold themselves accountable, Gymshark customers could feel a sense of unity and belonging that was associated to the brand.

Create shared experiences for your customers to build a community they want to be a part of.

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