Challenger fitness brand Gymbox has caused something of a stir within the marketing and advertising community over the past few weeks.
Never one to shy away from provocative and disruptive advertising campaigns, Gymbox has this time attracted the ire of what some might call ‘media purists’ with a mocked-up out-of-home campaign.
This was, for all intents and purposes, simply a PR stunt which might have gone under the radar if it had been restricted to social media. Gymbox, however, pushed out to the press as a genuine campaign scheduled to run across the tops of London’s iconic red buses – something which would have made it an advertising first.
What’s the big deal?
Sparking lively debate – and a fair bit of criticism – the stunt has been bullishly defended by Gymbox brand and marketing director, Rory McEntee who suggests that the brand has been vilified simply because it “dared to avoid the traditional routes to market”.
The ensuing PR storm has no doubt increased the campaign’s footprint significantly – and it must said, McEntee makes a fair point. So has Gymbox actually done anything wrong? As with most things in life – the answer is far from black and white.
Although it’s been a huge success in terms of garnering widespread attention across the trade press there has also been outrage in some quarters – most notably in the form of an expletive-laden article from The Media Leader’s editor Omar Oakes, in which he accuses Gymbox CEO Marc Diaper of being ‘full of shit’.
The ensuing controversy has helped bring so-called faux out-of-home (FOOH) to the forefront of industry conversation.
The Gymbox defence
Breaking his silence for the first time since the controversy broke, Gymbox CMO Rory McEntee defends the work against claims of ‘fakery’ – pointing out that as a piece of content it is very much real.
“The reality is we did have the idea and tried to do it, but it turns out you can’t advertise on top of buses,” he says.
“Who knew?! We felt the creative idea was good, so why not package it up as piece of content? That becomes the ad itself. It’s not fake. It’s real content and we are talking about it right now.”
In this regard, Gymbox is not the first – there has been a slew of FOOH campaigns this summer from major international brands such as Maybelline, Jacquemus and L’Oréal. In that case, why shouldn’t smaller brands look to get a piece of the pie?
“AR/CGI is outpacing OOH innovation and I don’t see anything new in the OOH space currently. I think it’s something media owners need to address,” McEntee begins.
“Combined with the fact that OOH is a huge expense for smaller brands and you can drive similar or higher levels of reach through digital executions for a fraction of the price, then it makes sense for a lot of brands to explore this route to market.”
Is CGI the future of out-of-home?
So, what do CGI campaigns mean for the future of the OOH industry? As McEntee makes crystal clear – the costs entailed by OOH buying can be prohibitive for smaller challenger brands, and the creative versatility offered by such mock-ups simply cannot be matched by old-school OOH.
It should also be noted that in a world where most people’s daily interactions with content are overwhelmingly online, the impact of such stunts can often massively outweigh the reach of traditional, ‘real-life’ advertising – as DDB North America’s head of comms strategy, Michael Goldstein highlights.
“IRL advertising is now built for amplification in online worlds. You don’t buy a billboard for the hundreds of people walking past, you buy a billboard, do something impactful and have it captured and spread online to millions.
“Faced with tightened budgets and realistic technology the logical next step was to fake it. I believe this reveal will start a new trend of incredibly creative, unbelievable use of CGI, where the audience is aware it is faked, but is still impressed by the artistry.”
Interestingly, Goldstein wonders whether the widespread proliferation of these CGI campaigns are “easy and quick to produce” will only serve to amplify “tangible work that takes effort to plan and execute”.
Concurring with McEntee on how this rapidly-evolving medium can level the playing field between the traditional big players and challenger brands, Socially Powerful founding partner, James Hacking argues that if anything, these kinds of campaign drive greater creative innovation.
“I like marketing like this, especially if it’s a small brand with a lower budget that needs to think laterally about capturing attention,” he says.
“When you have no marketing spend, you’re forced to look at every angle and this can make you more creative, as opposed to a brand like Barbie with hundreds of millions to splash around.”
Fittingly, McEntee holds up Gymbox’s brand awareness and budget constraints as the principal factors that drove it towards such a bold creative decision. “With only 9 clubs in London, our brand recognition isn’t as strong as Nike, Maybelline or British Airways so we have to work harder and find clever ways to get our message out there.
“This is a new wave of marketing which requires a different strategy and creative tactics to get share of voice.”
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest marketing news sent straight to your inbox each morning
The heart of the matter
“The industry isn’t mad at fake ads. It’s mad at being played,” says 72andSunny Amsterdam’s group strategy director, Armando Potter.
“My advice: Get over yourself and play back. Stop being so hung up on the old rules of how we think media and agencies should play and start embracing the new rules of how conversations actually unfold with consumers on social.”
The need to embrace new ideas around creativity and do away with any perceived ‘order’ that may govern it is largely backed up by Amplify’s creative director Jordan Dale, who evokes “a world of blurred realities” in which we’ve been living “for a while now”.
“I’ve always been a firm believer that this blurriness should be embraced wholeheartedly when it comes to storytelling. Whether it’s fake or real, if it makes for a narrative that unlocks deeper brand connection – it’s a banger.
“The magic of the blur lies in drawing the viewer in with that unknown. You want them to question it so that it encourages a second look. So in that aspect, the Gymbox work is great.”
Dale does however caveat his praise with the observation that by lying to the press about the nature of the campaign, a certain gloss is taken off the concept. In this aspect, he urged Gymbox to “do better”.
And therein lies the heart of the issue for many. It’s isn’t necessarily that the campaign was a mock-up – as similar campaigns have proven quite successful this summer – more the dubious way that Gymbox went about promoting it.
While the dramatic reaction from some within the industry has been overblown, it does beg the question – did Gymbox really need to bring the ad to market like this? Looking at the column inches generated as a result, maybe they did…
