Gymshark’s North American Expansion Continues Via First Local Marketing Campaign Called ‘United We Sweat’

The start of January saw Gymshark launch its debut North American campaign called ‘United We Sweat’ to supercharge its US expansion

Created by Ultra Brand Studio (the strategy firm behind recent Nike and EA campaigns), the work is centered around a team of Gymshark athlete ambassadors including UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, trainer Austin Dotson, American footballer George Bamfo, swimmer Haven Shepherd, powerlifter Lya Bavoil, and author of the Running Fat Chef blog Latoya Shauntay.

The creative states that ‘individual + community = the unstoppable’ and argues that while the world ‘gives us every reason to pull apart, we are proof of what happens when we pull together’.

Launched on 4 January, the campaign spanned Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat as well as including TV spots on programmatic and connected television.

“Each of our athletes has different fitness focuses but share a constant commitment to their community, dedication to the process, and responsibility to put in the work every day to be the best version of themselves,” explained Gymshark’s Vice President of Brand Marketing Sennai Atsbeha.

The spearhead work will be backed up by hyper-local Gymshark campaigns giving the US its own marketing strategy based around local fitness communities.

“We are super focused on continuing to diversify, expand into new fitness spaces, and build with grassroots partners as we know our message is one that resonates with a wide variety of people and communities,” Atsbeha added. “Our US media plan is to tie with partners that share an aligned value proposition instead of going for mass reach – examples include collaborations with sports publishers Overtime TV and Wave Sports + Entertainment.”

Chief Brand Officer Noel Mack added that Gymshark has “good brand awareness” so the campaign is instead about “brand education and really driving home what makes Gymshark special”.

“This is bigger than a brand campaign, it’s about people understanding the power of unity and fitness, outlined Mack. “Since Gymshark’s beginning we’ve been bringing people together under the banner of fitness and conditioning and to this day uniting people plays a huge part of our purpose, and right now we truly believe that unity is needed more than ever.”

Comment

The digital-first fitness apparel brand opened its US office in Denver in 2019 and opened its first US warehouse in California in June 2020. The company also unveiled plans to open a further three warehouses over the next 12-months.