of the United Kingdom’s capitol city.
With a tagline as direct as “We do gym,” Gymshark hardly keeps it simple…especially if we’re talking about its physical retail strategy. But it’s this simple tagline that has made the brand gain so much traction, and so much longevity, in a category brimming with high-value players and dupes alike.
Birthed in 2012, the brand has garnered a cult-like following for its clarity and intention: it was built in the weight room, so it would remain committed to athletes; members of their “family” who grew and thrived in the gym. A community of people constantly seeking inspiration, motivation, and improvement. Since then, the brand has grown its familial circle by creating spaces just for them, whether it be a limited pop-up or a full-blown world tour.
Gymshark’s latest pop-up in NYC was no exception. Designed as one-day activation and celebration for its latest Onyx Collection, the store was designed as a superhero-themed HQ, featuring shareable product installations, interactive supercomputers, a mini weightlifting area, and a series of “secret rooms” that encouraged deeper, more meandering discovery. The store was outfitted inside Cooper Classic Cars in Manhattan’s West Village, making it a top-secret lair (akin to the Bat Cave) specially for Gymshark’s most committed athletes and fans.
But it’s not just about having a great space. (Although, to be fair, the space was cool. Gun metal fixtures, lasers, sleek displays, and a smoke machine brought the superhero concept to life.) It’s about drumming up the appropriate buzz using a thoughtful combination of subtlety, secrecy, and exclusivity.
Mitch Healey, Global Retail and Events Director at Gymshark, noted that one especially effective tactic was having David Laid, Gymshark athlete and Creative Director of Lifting (yes, that’s a real title) “accidentally” post a slide from a deck to Snapchat about the pop-up.
“Then, some more of our athletes hinted at plans to travel to New York on Reddit,” Healey explained. “This lit the curiosity touchpaper and it snowballed into loads of discussion and analysis on TikTok and Reddit about what this could mean and ultimately, did it mean that Onyx was coming back?”
It wasn’t just a way for consumers to learn and share. It was a way for them to actively participate in the campaign itself. And when there’s active participation, there’s an innate need to invest more time, money, and energy into something. Because it’s no longer just a brand…it’s part of your identity.
The sneaky marketing strategy paid off, with more than 1,000 people lining up to potentially get access to the SoHo store. The queue snaked around the streets of New York, with the earliest entrants lining up 12 hours before the store’s opening, Healey shared. The digital halo effect surrounding the pop-up also impacted Gymshark’s digital business: “The site for the online launch went down due to having so much traffic at once. It was one of our busiest hours in our history.”
A Product Loomed in Lore
The return of the Onyx served as a powerful call-to-action for Gymshark fans in the NYC area and beyond. Although it officially launched in 2016, Onyx maintains its position as the most in-demand Gymshark collection. Many product drops garner this level of success through scarcity, but Onyx has captured emotional connection and resonance through lore.
For many Gymshark customers, Onyx was “so much more than a top,” according to Healey. “It was a uniform.” Over the years, this lore has evolved and expanded. It has become a form of identity. Of belonging. Of cultural currency. That highly emotional and unquantifiable value has turned into tangible, financial worth. Original pieces go for well over $500 on sites like Vinted and Depop, Healey shared.
“When we decided to bring [Onyx] back after a five-year absence, we knew we had to give those guys who were so passionate about it something memorable, not just to drive hype and awareness, but to thank them for their enduring loyalty,” he said. Inspired by Gymshark’s Laid, the new range “is engineered to enhance the physique with superhero-inspired design elements that embody strength, confidence, and performance. Reimagined for today’s dedicated gym-goer.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the pop-up’s theme wrote itself…
“It was really quite a simple insight that drove it all. Onyx made you feel like a superhero—it made you feel more confident, more unstoppable, that you could lift anything. This is what really drove us towards the superhero lair that we created.”
- Mitch Healey, Gymshark
Beyond Product and Place
Long-term partners Pink Sparrow helped Gymshark design and build the pop-up experience, turning the superhero idea into a full-blown story that built a whole new world. A sleek lair for gym buffs.
“I think the biggest lesson from this one is the impact of having a really unique space that people want to go and experience, paired with genuinely good products that they really want,” Healey said. “One of these things by themselves would be a win, but if you can do both, that’s when the magic really happens.”
But Good Experience + Good Product is a somewhat reductive and obvious strategy. It’s a theory that many C-level execs spew from conference stages and earnings calls. But the difference is, few brands do this really well.
That’s because, as Future Commerce Co-Founder Brian Lange bluntly put it: “Brands are literally made up.”
Brands are figments of our imagination. They’re myths and constructed realities that “give life to products and services.”
Brands need to be really good at myth making in order to reach the level of brand love Gymshark has. And Ben Francis and Lewis Morgan started weaving the Gymshark myth in 2012 when it was founded as a supplement dropshipper. By committing to a very focused and passionate community (the conditioning community) that had a very clear idea of who they were and who they wanted to be, the co-founders were able to shape and evolve the brand to what it is today.
It’s a brand that still manages to stay true to those humble and scrappy beginnings while being incredibly aspirational. A brand that has an innate understanding of self-congruity, which refers to the perceived similarity between a consumer’s self-concept and a brand’s image or personality.
To be clear, by “conditioning,” the brand is referring to “everything we do today to prepare for tomorrow.” As their “About Us” states:
“It's not our goals that unite us, but the things we do to achieve them. Because although our training grounds and end goals might be different, sweat is our sport. And we're a team of individuals who know that to go further, we go together.”
The brand has been able to shape its role in consumers’ lives by shaping what conditioning really means. At the simplest level, conditioning refers to the process of preparing your body for an activity. However, Gymshark has expanded this definition, and its surrounding story, to mean so much more.
Through its simple tagline, “We do gym,” the brand has been able to create a powerful calling card that shows up in so many spaces and places. That’s why, while the product itself is great, it is Gymshark’s powerful use of self-congruity that makes its spaces so much more than stores. They’re inspirational and aspirational spaces where their “family” can gather.
With a tagline as direct as “We do gym,” Gymshark hardly keeps it simple…especially if we’re talking about its physical retail strategy. But it’s this simple tagline that has made the brand gain so much traction, and so much longevity, in a category brimming with high-value players and dupes alike.
Birthed in 2012, the brand has garnered a cult-like following for its clarity and intention: it was built in the weight room, so it would remain committed to athletes; members of their “family” who grew and thrived in the gym. A community of people constantly seeking inspiration, motivation, and improvement. Since then, the brand has grown its familial circle by creating spaces just for them, whether it be a limited pop-up or a full-blown world tour.
Gymshark’s latest pop-up in NYC was no exception. Designed as one-day activation and celebration for its latest Onyx Collection, the store was designed as a superhero-themed HQ, featuring shareable product installations, interactive supercomputers, a mini weightlifting area, and a series of “secret rooms” that encouraged deeper, more meandering discovery. The store was outfitted inside Cooper Classic Cars in Manhattan’s West Village, making it a top-secret lair (akin to the Bat Cave) specially for Gymshark’s most committed athletes and fans.
But it’s not just about having a great space. (Although, to be fair, the space was cool. Gun metal fixtures, lasers, sleek displays, and a smoke machine brought the superhero concept to life.) It’s about drumming up the appropriate buzz using a thoughtful combination of subtlety, secrecy, and exclusivity.
Mitch Healey, Global Retail and Events Director at Gymshark, noted that one especially effective tactic was having David Laid, Gymshark athlete and Creative Director of Lifting (yes, that’s a real title) “accidentally” post a slide from a deck to Snapchat about the pop-up.
“Then, some more of our athletes hinted at plans to travel to New York on Reddit,” Healey explained. “This lit the curiosity touchpaper and it snowballed into loads of discussion and analysis on TikTok and Reddit about what this could mean and ultimately, did it mean that Onyx was coming back?”
It wasn’t just a way for consumers to learn and share. It was a way for them to actively participate in the campaign itself. And when there’s active participation, there’s an innate need to invest more time, money, and energy into something. Because it’s no longer just a brand…it’s part of your identity.
The sneaky marketing strategy paid off, with more than 1,000 people lining up to potentially get access to the SoHo store. The queue snaked around the streets of New York, with the earliest entrants lining up 12 hours before the store’s opening, Healey shared. The digital halo effect surrounding the pop-up also impacted Gymshark’s digital business: “The site for the online launch went down due to having so much traffic at once. It was one of our busiest hours in our history.”
A Product Loomed in Lore
The return of the Onyx served as a powerful call-to-action for Gymshark fans in the NYC area and beyond. Although it officially launched in 2016, Onyx maintains its position as the most in-demand Gymshark collection. Many product drops garner this level of success through scarcity, but Onyx has captured emotional connection and resonance through lore.
For many Gymshark customers, Onyx was “so much more than a top,” according to Healey. “It was a uniform.” Over the years, this lore has evolved and expanded. It has become a form of identity. Of belonging. Of cultural currency. That highly emotional and unquantifiable value has turned into tangible, financial worth. Original pieces go for well over $500 on sites like Vinted and Depop, Healey shared.
“When we decided to bring [Onyx] back after a five-year absence, we knew we had to give those guys who were so passionate about it something memorable, not just to drive hype and awareness, but to thank them for their enduring loyalty,” he said. Inspired by Gymshark’s Laid, the new range “is engineered to enhance the physique with superhero-inspired design elements that embody strength, confidence, and performance. Reimagined for today’s dedicated gym-goer.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the pop-up’s theme wrote itself…
“It was really quite a simple insight that drove it all. Onyx made you feel like a superhero—it made you feel more confident, more unstoppable, that you could lift anything. This is what really drove us towards the superhero lair that we created.”
- Mitch Healey, Gymshark
Beyond Product and Place
Long-term partners Pink Sparrow helped Gymshark design and build the pop-up experience, turning the superhero idea into a full-blown story that built a whole new world. A sleek lair for gym buffs.
“I think the biggest lesson from this one is the impact of having a really unique space that people want to go and experience, paired with genuinely good products that they really want,” Healey said. “One of these things by themselves would be a win, but if you can do both, that’s when the magic really happens.”
But Good Experience + Good Product is a somewhat reductive and obvious strategy. It’s a theory that many C-level execs spew from conference stages and earnings calls. But the difference is, few brands do this really well.
That’s because, as Future Commerce Co-Founder Brian Lange bluntly put it: “Brands are literally made up.”
Brands are figments of our imagination. They’re myths and constructed realities that “give life to products and services.”
Brands need to be really good at myth making in order to reach the level of brand love Gymshark has. And Ben Francis and Lewis Morgan started weaving the Gymshark myth in 2012 when it was founded as a supplement dropshipper. By committing to a very focused and passionate community (the conditioning community) that had a very clear idea of who they were and who they wanted to be, the co-founders were able to shape and evolve the brand to what it is today.
It’s a brand that still manages to stay true to those humble and scrappy beginnings while being incredibly aspirational. A brand that has an innate understanding of self-congruity, which refers to the perceived similarity between a consumer’s self-concept and a brand’s image or personality.
To be clear, by “conditioning,” the brand is referring to “everything we do today to prepare for tomorrow.” As their “About Us” states:
“It's not our goals that unite us, but the things we do to achieve them. Because although our training grounds and end goals might be different, sweat is our sport. And we're a team of individuals who know that to go further, we go together.”
The brand has been able to shape its role in consumers’ lives by shaping what conditioning really means. At the simplest level, conditioning refers to the process of preparing your body for an activity. However, Gymshark has expanded this definition, and its surrounding story, to mean so much more.
Through its simple tagline, “We do gym,” the brand has been able to create a powerful calling card that shows up in so many spaces and places. That’s why, while the product itself is great, it is Gymshark’s powerful use of self-congruity that makes its spaces so much more than stores. They’re inspirational and aspirational spaces where their “family” can gather.
With a tagline as direct as “We do gym,” Gymshark hardly keeps it simple…especially if we’re talking about its physical retail strategy. But it’s this simple tagline that has made the brand gain so much traction, and so much longevity, in a category brimming with high-value players and dupes alike.
Birthed in 2012, the brand has garnered a cult-like following for its clarity and intention: it was built in the weight room, so it would remain committed to athletes; members of their “family” who grew and thrived in the gym. A community of people constantly seeking inspiration, motivation, and improvement. Since then, the brand has grown its familial circle by creating spaces just for them, whether it be a limited pop-up or a full-blown world tour.
Gymshark’s latest pop-up in NYC was no exception. Designed as one-day activation and celebration for its latest Onyx Collection, the store was designed as a superhero-themed HQ, featuring shareable product installations, interactive supercomputers, a mini weightlifting area, and a series of “secret rooms” that encouraged deeper, more meandering discovery. The store was outfitted inside Cooper Classic Cars in Manhattan’s West Village, making it a top-secret lair (akin to the Bat Cave) specially for Gymshark’s most committed athletes and fans.
But it’s not just about having a great space. (Although, to be fair, the space was cool. Gun metal fixtures, lasers, sleek displays, and a smoke machine brought the superhero concept to life.) It’s about drumming up the appropriate buzz using a thoughtful combination of subtlety, secrecy, and exclusivity.
Mitch Healey, Global Retail and Events Director at Gymshark, noted that one especially effective tactic was having David Laid, Gymshark athlete and Creative Director of Lifting (yes, that’s a real title) “accidentally” post a slide from a deck to Snapchat about the pop-up.
“Then, some more of our athletes hinted at plans to travel to New York on Reddit,” Healey explained. “This lit the curiosity touchpaper and it snowballed into loads of discussion and analysis on TikTok and Reddit about what this could mean and ultimately, did it mean that Onyx was coming back?”
It wasn’t just a way for consumers to learn and share. It was a way for them to actively participate in the campaign itself. And when there’s active participation, there’s an innate need to invest more time, money, and energy into something. Because it’s no longer just a brand…it’s part of your identity.
The sneaky marketing strategy paid off, with more than 1,000 people lining up to potentially get access to the SoHo store. The queue snaked around the streets of New York, with the earliest entrants lining up 12 hours before the store’s opening, Healey shared. The digital halo effect surrounding the pop-up also impacted Gymshark’s digital business: “The site for the online launch went down due to having so much traffic at once. It was one of our busiest hours in our history.”
A Product Loomed in Lore
The return of the Onyx served as a powerful call-to-action for Gymshark fans in the NYC area and beyond. Although it officially launched in 2016, Onyx maintains its position as the most in-demand Gymshark collection. Many product drops garner this level of success through scarcity, but Onyx has captured emotional connection and resonance through lore.
For many Gymshark customers, Onyx was “so much more than a top,” according to Healey. “It was a uniform.” Over the years, this lore has evolved and expanded. It has become a form of identity. Of belonging. Of cultural currency. That highly emotional and unquantifiable value has turned into tangible, financial worth. Original pieces go for well over $500 on sites like Vinted and Depop, Healey shared.
“When we decided to bring [Onyx] back after a five-year absence, we knew we had to give those guys who were so passionate about it something memorable, not just to drive hype and awareness, but to thank them for their enduring loyalty,” he said. Inspired by Gymshark’s Laid, the new range “is engineered to enhance the physique with superhero-inspired design elements that embody strength, confidence, and performance. Reimagined for today’s dedicated gym-goer.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the pop-up’s theme wrote itself…
“It was really quite a simple insight that drove it all. Onyx made you feel like a superhero—it made you feel more confident, more unstoppable, that you could lift anything. This is what really drove us towards the superhero lair that we created.”
- Mitch Healey, Gymshark
Beyond Product and Place
Long-term partners Pink Sparrow helped Gymshark design and build the pop-up experience, turning the superhero idea into a full-blown story that built a whole new world. A sleek lair for gym buffs.
“I think the biggest lesson from this one is the impact of having a really unique space that people want to go and experience, paired with genuinely good products that they really want,” Healey said. “One of these things by themselves would be a win, but if you can do both, that’s when the magic really happens.”
But Good Experience + Good Product is a somewhat reductive and obvious strategy. It’s a theory that many C-level execs spew from conference stages and earnings calls. But the difference is, few brands do this really well.
That’s because, as Future Commerce Co-Founder Brian Lange bluntly put it: “Brands are literally made up.”
Brands are figments of our imagination. They’re myths and constructed realities that “give life to products and services.”
Brands need to be really good at myth making in order to reach the level of brand love Gymshark has. And Ben Francis and Lewis Morgan started weaving the Gymshark myth in 2012 when it was founded as a supplement dropshipper. By committing to a very focused and passionate community (the conditioning community) that had a very clear idea of who they were and who they wanted to be, the co-founders were able to shape and evolve the brand to what it is today.
It’s a brand that still manages to stay true to those humble and scrappy beginnings while being incredibly aspirational. A brand that has an innate understanding of self-congruity, which refers to the perceived similarity between a consumer’s self-concept and a brand’s image or personality.
To be clear, by “conditioning,” the brand is referring to “everything we do today to prepare for tomorrow.” As their “About Us” states:
“It's not our goals that unite us, but the things we do to achieve them. Because although our training grounds and end goals might be different, sweat is our sport. And we're a team of individuals who know that to go further, we go together.”
The brand has been able to shape its role in consumers’ lives by shaping what conditioning really means. At the simplest level, conditioning refers to the process of preparing your body for an activity. However, Gymshark has expanded this definition, and its surrounding story, to mean so much more.
Through its simple tagline, “We do gym,” the brand has been able to create a powerful calling card that shows up in so many spaces and places. That’s why, while the product itself is great, it is Gymshark’s powerful use of self-congruity that makes its spaces so much more than stores. They’re inspirational and aspirational spaces where their “family” can gather.
With a tagline as direct as “We do gym,” Gymshark hardly keeps it simple…especially if we’re talking about its physical retail strategy. But it’s this simple tagline that has made the brand gain so much traction, and so much longevity, in a category brimming with high-value players and dupes alike.
Birthed in 2012, the brand has garnered a cult-like following for its clarity and intention: it was built in the weight room, so it would remain committed to athletes; members of their “family” who grew and thrived in the gym. A community of people constantly seeking inspiration, motivation, and improvement. Since then, the brand has grown its familial circle by creating spaces just for them, whether it be a limited pop-up or a full-blown world tour.
Gymshark’s latest pop-up in NYC was no exception. Designed as one-day activation and celebration for its latest Onyx Collection, the store was designed as a superhero-themed HQ, featuring shareable product installations, interactive supercomputers, a mini weightlifting area, and a series of “secret rooms” that encouraged deeper, more meandering discovery. The store was outfitted inside Cooper Classic Cars in Manhattan’s West Village, making it a top-secret lair (akin to the Bat Cave) specially for Gymshark’s most committed athletes and fans.
But it’s not just about having a great space. (Although, to be fair, the space was cool. Gun metal fixtures, lasers, sleek displays, and a smoke machine brought the superhero concept to life.) It’s about drumming up the appropriate buzz using a thoughtful combination of subtlety, secrecy, and exclusivity.
Mitch Healey, Global Retail and Events Director at Gymshark, noted that one especially effective tactic was having David Laid, Gymshark athlete and Creative Director of Lifting (yes, that’s a real title) “accidentally” post a slide from a deck to Snapchat about the pop-up.
“Then, some more of our athletes hinted at plans to travel to New York on Reddit,” Healey explained. “This lit the curiosity touchpaper and it snowballed into loads of discussion and analysis on TikTok and Reddit about what this could mean and ultimately, did it mean that Onyx was coming back?”
It wasn’t just a way for consumers to learn and share. It was a way for them to actively participate in the campaign itself. And when there’s active participation, there’s an innate need to invest more time, money, and energy into something. Because it’s no longer just a brand…it’s part of your identity.
The sneaky marketing strategy paid off, with more than 1,000 people lining up to potentially get access to the SoHo store. The queue snaked around the streets of New York, with the earliest entrants lining up 12 hours before the store’s opening, Healey shared. The digital halo effect surrounding the pop-up also impacted Gymshark’s digital business: “The site for the online launch went down due to having so much traffic at once. It was one of our busiest hours in our history.”
A Product Loomed in Lore
The return of the Onyx served as a powerful call-to-action for Gymshark fans in the NYC area and beyond. Although it officially launched in 2016, Onyx maintains its position as the most in-demand Gymshark collection. Many product drops garner this level of success through scarcity, but Onyx has captured emotional connection and resonance through lore.
For many Gymshark customers, Onyx was “so much more than a top,” according to Healey. “It was a uniform.” Over the years, this lore has evolved and expanded. It has become a form of identity. Of belonging. Of cultural currency. That highly emotional and unquantifiable value has turned into tangible, financial worth. Original pieces go for well over $500 on sites like Vinted and Depop, Healey shared.
“When we decided to bring [Onyx] back after a five-year absence, we knew we had to give those guys who were so passionate about it something memorable, not just to drive hype and awareness, but to thank them for their enduring loyalty,” he said. Inspired by Gymshark’s Laid, the new range “is engineered to enhance the physique with superhero-inspired design elements that embody strength, confidence, and performance. Reimagined for today’s dedicated gym-goer.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the pop-up’s theme wrote itself…
“It was really quite a simple insight that drove it all. Onyx made you feel like a superhero—it made you feel more confident, more unstoppable, that you could lift anything. This is what really drove us towards the superhero lair that we created.”
- Mitch Healey, Gymshark
Beyond Product and Place
Long-term partners Pink Sparrow helped Gymshark design and build the pop-up experience, turning the superhero idea into a full-blown story that built a whole new world. A sleek lair for gym buffs.
“I think the biggest lesson from this one is the impact of having a really unique space that people want to go and experience, paired with genuinely good products that they really want,” Healey said. “One of these things by themselves would be a win, but if you can do both, that’s when the magic really happens.”
But Good Experience + Good Product is a somewhat reductive and obvious strategy. It’s a theory that many C-level execs spew from conference stages and earnings calls. But the difference is, few brands do this really well.
That’s because, as Future Commerce Co-Founder Brian Lange bluntly put it: “Brands are literally made up.”
Brands are figments of our imagination. They’re myths and constructed realities that “give life to products and services.”
Brands need to be really good at myth making in order to reach the level of brand love Gymshark has. And Ben Francis and Lewis Morgan started weaving the Gymshark myth in 2012 when it was founded as a supplement dropshipper. By committing to a very focused and passionate community (the conditioning community) that had a very clear idea of who they were and who they wanted to be, the co-founders were able to shape and evolve the brand to what it is today.
It’s a brand that still manages to stay true to those humble and scrappy beginnings while being incredibly aspirational. A brand that has an innate understanding of self-congruity, which refers to the perceived similarity between a consumer’s self-concept and a brand’s image or personality.
To be clear, by “conditioning,” the brand is referring to “everything we do today to prepare for tomorrow.” As their “About Us” states:
“It's not our goals that unite us, but the things we do to achieve them. Because although our training grounds and end goals might be different, sweat is our sport. And we're a team of individuals who know that to go further, we go together.”
The brand has been able to shape its role in consumers’ lives by shaping what conditioning really means. At the simplest level, conditioning refers to the process of preparing your body for an activity. However, Gymshark has expanded this definition, and its surrounding story, to mean so much more.
Through its simple tagline, “We do gym,” the brand has been able to create a powerful calling card that shows up in so many spaces and places. That’s why, while the product itself is great, it is Gymshark’s powerful use of self-congruity that makes its spaces so much more than stores. They’re inspirational and aspirational spaces where their “family” can gather.
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