Consumer Behavior - Gym Shark

The Ask: Design a creative campaign based off ethnographic research to capture the attention of GymShark’s target consumers (18-24 year olds).

The Process: Conduct ethnographic research in the digital and physical communities where the target audience participate i.e. gyms, workout classes, post-workout juice cafes, online threads and groups. After looking at the trends and preferences for the target audience, we developed a persona which informed our creative idea and execution.

The Solution: A video campaign drawing on the similarities between sharks and athletes which runs alongside a social media campaign, inspired by Spotify’s ‘Wrapped’ to encourage strong user-generated content and community. We found inspiration in the shark communities and found that much of what we wanted to communicate could be done so through this comparison. Understanding that the fitness community associated with GymShark can be intimidating, we wanted to remove the barrier to entry by creating events and content that could resonate with any one who may feel like a “fish out of water” (or in this case a shark) when it comes to the fitness communities. We did this by providing our audience with an opportunity to create and share their “shark identity” and find other “sharks” who share similar interests and fitness goals.

Campaign Video Includes:

• Concept

• Activation Strategy

• Proposed enhancements to existing platforms

The Team

Ryan Dotter

Teresa Ferreira

Micheal Conroy

Anna Savchuk

Haley Cook

James Kehoe