A 2023 New Year campaign from UK exercise outfit Gymbox offers the brand’s own attitudinal take on classic fitness quotes as it seeks to cut through the exercise bullshit, gym nonsense and fitness industry motivational commandments to position Gymbox as the lively alternative to the more traditional and serious approach of competitor big gym chains.
Created by agency AMV BBDO (with media handled by the7stars and a Jack Media), the work aims to reinforce the unconventional positioning of the London based fitness chain and saw the agency continue to follow a brief to ‘disrupt the category’ and reinforce its brand position as the ‘antidote to boring gyms’.
Rolling out from the start of January, the out-of-home led campaign was backed up by digital and social content (across Meta, TikTok and YouTube) featuring graffiti style copy overlaying cliché motivational quotes to represent Gymbox’s sense of fun and bold spirit.
For example, one execution features the phrase ‘You can’t cheat on the gym’ scribbled out and replaced by the scrawled words ‘Which is lucky given your track record’. Another sees the line ‘You earn your body’ covered by graffiti reading ‘Unless you inherited or paid for it’.
The campaign followed on from a brand backed survey of more than 2,500 Londoners which found that 48% of respondents cited ‘outdated motivational fitness quotes’ as their biggest gym turn off, followed by ‘intimidating environments’ (21%) and ‘body transformation images’ (16%).
“When did gym culture get so serious and weird?” asked Gymbox Marketing Director Rory McEntree. “AMV have done a great job at helping us cut through the bulls**t because there’s no right way or wrong way to work out. Working out should be as fun as going out and at Gymbox, we are about pure, unadulterated fun and self-confidence. With this attention-grabbing campaign, we wanted to get across Gymbox’s unique approach to keeping fit and it really brings our messages to life, raising a smile and demonstrating a positive Gymbox attitude”.
AMV BBDO Creative Director Prabhu Wignarajah added: “Getting to work with a brand like Gymbox is a gift – they have built an alternative to the typical dour, humourless gym chains and have created a fun, inclusive atmosphere. A fantastic brief like this deserves a great creative treatment”.
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This campaign aims to drive home the brand’s key message that Gymbox ‘provides high quality training facilities and fitness classes in an inclusive and fun atmosphere that contrasts to the grunt and grind environment of other gyms’.
This initiative builds on Gymbox’s existing ‘Anything goes’ campaign and follows on from January 2022’s ‘100 Classes’, 2020’s controversial humour-led campaign and 2019’s no-fun initiative.
AMV BBDO picked up the gym brand’s account at the end of last year in a competitive pitch.
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