Gymbox founder: ‘We set out to be a rebel brand’

Adman turned entrepreneur, Richard Hilton, on setting up an American-style fitness company in the UK, and why sitting still in this sector makes a company outdated within weeks.

What’s your business background?

My background is nothing to do with the fitness and leisure sector. I started out in advertising. I began my career in New York in 1990, when I was 19, and worked my way up through a few different ad agencies in client account services.

It was when I was in New York that I saw a very similar concept to Gymbox: fitness classes with DJ sets for music – classes that tried out new fitness trends or had a party atmosphere. I fell in love with it.

I came back to the UK in 1997 and carried on in advertising. I finished my ad career as head of new business at Wieden+Kennedy.

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How did you start Gymbox?

When I was in my last advertising role, the idea of trying to bring my New York gym experience to London was eating away at me. As a regular gym-goer, I was disappointed by the offering in the UK. Lots of brands seemed to have very little to distinguish them. They had lots
of product [gyms], but very little in terms of brand. And the experience of going to the gym just wasn’t very exciting.

It was a difficult thing to do though; I was pretty naive about it. It involved lots of tricky work with property and finance.

But in 2000, I decided to put together a business plan. The concept was simple: a gym that looked like a nightclub, with live music and unusual classes.

There were two obvious problems: finding the right properties and [securing] a huge amount of money. I didn’t want to set up a little boutique; I wanted a 20,000sq ft space. Unsurprisingly, no one was interested in investing: private equity, banks, angels – no one wanted to back it.

I was lucky; Fitness First got involved. It was the original backer and offered the finances and build experience that we needed. I kept hold of the design, class planning and other creative aspects. We opened our first club in Holborn in 2003 and within a year, we were able to buy back the shares and carry on as an independent brand.

I will never forget how terrified I was when we opened our first gym; we had spent £2m on it. What if no one turned up?

What’s your approach to branding?

When we launched, [gym] advertising was entirely focused on those “before and after” style images, with a thin person holding up massive trousers and saying that they lost X number of pounds in X weeks.

We’ve never spoken about weight loss. For us, it’s about being healthy, which is about more than weight. I decided that [our tone] needed to be really irreverent, deliberately controversial and thought-provoking.

We set out to be a slightly rebel brand. At launch we put up signs on all our competitors’ entrances saying: “Better gym this way”. We were consciously different and we thought the brand needed humour. We wanted to be challenging, but we didn’t mean to be offensive.

There have been times when we got it wrong, by unintentionally causing offence. We called a class “Bitch Boxing”. It was called that because it was led by a professional fighter whose name was Cathy “The Bitch” Brown. We asked her what she wanted her female boxing class to be called, and that’s what she suggested. Members were happy about it, with some explanation, but it did cause some problems.

We’ve never had an in-house comms team. If anything ever came in from the press, I handled it. Occasionally we’ve bought in some PR support when we’re trying to build interest around a class, but we’ve always tried to explain our thinking behind our class names or activities quite openly.

What was the most valuable lesson that you brought over from advertising?

What branding really means: consistency. Throughout its development, Gymbox stuck to the same idea that it had when it started in 2003.

For example, when the recession hit in 2008, we were suffering like everybody else, but we didn’t shift on price, because we wanted to offer the same experience. I worked with Nike for many years. It was set up in the 1970s and it has stayed very true to its original brand messages.

You see plenty of companies spending a fortune on advertising or a gimmick, but an effective brand is one that fits together – that’s a whole picture. You can’t be a cool and funky brand without hiring cool people, or staying on top of trends time and time again.

What do you like most about the business?

New concepts and new classes have always excited me. We have the rave experience, which has lasted for years. We also had a Greek wedding-style fitness class, which was fun, but didn’t last. Then there are examples such as CrossFit – something that we adopted very quickly and has led on in the UK.

Fitness is the kind of industry where if you sit still, within weeks you will be outdated. If you look at much of the competition, they’re producing the same gyms and classes, year in, year out. I’ve said that you should stay consistent to the brand idea, but that doesn’t mean that your offer can’t or shouldn’t evolve.

I enjoy seeing what’s new and developing new programs. That constant, rapid change creates a great atmosphere within the team; people feel like they can influence the new ideas that we’re working on and shape what we offer to consumers.

I try very hard to be a fair manager above all else. That’s really important to me. I want everyone to feel that they’re treated equally.

What has been key to the company’s success?

We haven’t lasted as long as we have through penny pinching, or by letting clubs or machines get worn down; it’s about keeping them looking slick and smart, and ensuring that we’re always good value for money.

You can’t squeeze margins in this kind of business very easily.

Quick-fire questions | Richard Hilton

Richard Hilton is an ambassador for the start-up support programme, the Plusnet Pioneers campaign