Gymshark- The Revolution of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the process of using an already affluent person to market your product or service to their follower base. It is not a new form of marketing, sports brands have been doing it for years with affiliations such as Michael Jordan with Nike and Lionel Messi with Adidas. But in recent times there has been one brand that has used this form of marketing to such great effect that it has led them to be the fastest-growing company in the UK for multiple years back to back.

⁠Gymshark began with this form of marketing in large part due to their humble beginnings. When founder Ben Francis started the company, he was a teenager working at Pizza Hut and as a result, funds were not in great supply. So he got creative. He sent out free products to influencers with the hope that they would show them on their various social media channels. It worked, the influencers loved the products and their followers started buying up Gymshark gear. The company exploded, growing bigger every day. ⁠ ⁠

Even now as a large, multi-million-pound company with a large marketing budget, they still rely primarily on their numerous influencers to be their main source of customers. It is a model that has been adopted around the world with more brands looking to employ brand ambassadors as a large part of their marketing efforts.⁠ ⁠

The beauty of influencer marketing is that with appropriate research it can be as small scale or as large scale as you and your company want. An influencer marketing campaign could be as small as just paying a couple of Instagram pages to put up a story advertising your product or as large as Gymshark’s campaigns, employing numerous high profile influencers in long term contracts to promote the brand. ⁠