
The secret to explosive audience growth? Elfried Samba spills how Gymshark did it and how you can too!
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Abigail Pumphrey
Welcome to the Strategy Hour Podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy.
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Alfred Samba
Making sure that we stayed close to our audience by listening and making sure that we took what they were saying, how they were behaving. And we use that as the the starting point of our strategy. Making sure we didn't remove barriers to connections or friction to connection by ensuring that you can still feel like you could reach out and touch to the brand, but then also making sure that we only worked with people that we actually really aligned with.
Abigail Pumphrey
What if your brand could build the.
Host/Co-Host
Kind of fiercely loyal community that turned.
Abigail Pumphrey
Gymshark into a billion pound business? Today I'm talking with Alfred Samba the the marketing mastermind behind gymshark's rise from 1.5 million to over 20 million followers.
Host/Co-Host
He's the CEO and co founder of.
Abigail Pumphrey
Butterfly Effect, the go to agency behind.
Host/Co-Host
Powerhouse campaigns for Netflix, Bumble, McDonald's Square.
Abigail Pumphrey
And so many more.
Host/Co-Host
With a proven track record for turning passive audiences into highly engaged communities, Alfred.
Abigail Pumphrey
Knows exactly how to leverage community driven marketing for explosive growth. In this episode, he's sharing the exact.
Host/Co-Host
Strategies he used to scale Gymshark's global community and breaks them down in a super actionable way so that you can.
Abigail Pumphrey
Apply them immediately to your brand or even your own personal brand, no matter.
Host/Co-Host
Your brand size or budget.
Abigail Pumphrey
Now, whether you're just starting out or.
Host/Co-Host
Looking to deepen your audience relationships, Alfred's advice is super pitch. Pure gold.
Abigail Pumphrey
Buckle up. You're about to get the front row seat to how a billion pound brands.
Host/Co-Host
Build their communities from the inside out. So I hope you're paying attention. Alfred, welcome to the show.
Alfred Samba
Thank you for having me. I'm really, really excited to be on here. It was great to meet you at the teachable event and at the event we said we're going to do this, so I'm excited to be here.
Host/Co-Host
Well, I'm glad we made it happen because your story is so inspirational and you've had some incredible experiences that I are really going to help people build their own businesses and help them market more effectively. Specifically, you've spent a lot of time at Gymshark and in my opinion are a huge part of the reason it is so successful today. I'm obviously a little biased, but tell me a little bit about your role there and how you got involved with them in the first place and what you feel like the landscape looked like in terms of online social then compared to now.
Alfred Samba
Well, thank you for that. Like, I'm really humbled by that. I always say that it was a big team effort, but then I think that one thing that can't be denied is that social and community had a massive role to play into like the core of the role or the heart of the business and led a lot of the decisions that we made and the routes that we took to be able to get to where we got to. But first and foremost, so I joined the business in 2015. Before that, I was actually working at a marketing agency trying to convince people to take this thing called social media very, very seriously. I was obviously inspired by Steve Jobs from a marketing standpoint, which is the reason why I wear black till this day. But then actually I was inspired by Mike Zuckerberg as well. 21 year old saying no to a billion dollars because it was building this thing called Facebook that he felt was going to be the next big thing. And obviously being a marketing, I think in the US you call it a marketing major. I understood the four Ps, product place, price, promotion, and I felt that place doesn't have to necessarily be a physical space. It can be in the mind.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Or at least where you spend most of your time. So I thought that social was free real estate and that anybody that could master attention on those platforms would be able to master. Well, will be the biggest brand going forward in the future. Actually put it as my dissertation topic, the fact that I felt that medium small to medium sized businesses would dethrone the larger competitors using social because of that theory. And it was marked down because of lack of Harvard references.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So my whole itch that I wanted to scratch is that I wanted to become that ref, that reference. So I went to the agency world. They kind of let me do a little bit here and there. But then Gymshark finally gave me the opportunity to really spread my wings, if you will, because I started posting about it on social, well, on LinkedIn and a recruiter called Wind of It at Gymshark were hiring for somebody in social for the first time. It was just a match made in heaven then. And really I'll start with like where gymshark Social was, which will give you a bit of an insight as to where the world was back then, especially the early days of Instagram. Obviously Instagram came about in around 2010, but it was really not seen as a commercial weapon, was more seen as a place where people just shared pictures. Right. So it was very aim and spray. Just post what's happening and the Gymshark account just reaches. A lot of people reposted wearing the brand. And what would happen is, is that when somebody cooled the brand or post about it, they started almost like seeking advice from influencers or YouTubers and Instagram creators at the time that they admired, just asking them for that feedback really. But then over time, after they started to get more ingrained with the brand, they kind of like stumbled into this thing called influencer marketing.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So not only was reposts and posting things that almost like sharing moments as they went along, became ingrained in the culture or at least in the strategy. This thing called influencers, basically working with people that align with the brand that they care about their opinion and the one associated with the brand became a thing.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And Then my job was to understand what we had, systemize that and scale it. And that's the only thing that I will take credit for.
Host/Co-Host
Well, I mean, when you say scale it, your bio says one and a half million to 20 million followers. So that's like, I mean, a fairly.
Abigail Pumphrey
Large jump in your time there.
Host/Co-Host
So no small feat for sure.
Abigail Pumphrey
Do you feel like there was something pivotal in that?
Host/Co-Host
Like what outside of, you know, collaborating with influencers, like, what do you feel like was the jumping off point? What really made that work?
Alfred Samba
Funny enough, I nearly lost my job after three months, right? Because the goal, when I had my meeting with Ben, Ben's the founder at gymshark. He told me that the goal was very clear. He wants to create a brand that is mentioned in the same breath as Nike, added as PUMA, etc. And whilst I was excited about Social, I kind of like took that literally. And the first thing I did, what every marketer will do, is go and look at those brand and see what they're posting and get us to elevate with them. But then I realized that actually we can get to the same destination, but in the way we get there needs to be our own, right? And what I did initially was I would post like crisp, high quality content. We'll do photo shoots, all these mood boards to make the brand look more elevated. But really what we did is created a disconnect between to our audience, right? And what I realized is that they wanted to see themselves on the feed or they wanted to see people that are relatable on the feed. They wanted to make sure that our tone of voice was aligned with who they are. Really, what gymshark was, was a mirror to the audience that it represented. And the quicker that I knew that, the more I knew how to get a little bit of systemization, a little bit of production, just to elevate that key understanding, right? So instead of like going from unpolished to polished, we were kind of like in the mid range, right? And we maintained that stories need to come from a authentic place, the people that we feature. So we didn't really feature any models, right? So everybody that was featured on Gymshark Socials was either an ambassador of the brand or a member of the community, right? But then because they were all mentioned or showcased in the same way, there was almost like no hierarchy or status, if you will, that gymshark had. It was almost like a flat structure as opposed to a brand like Nike where you have like LeBron James and everybody else is like stacked up under it. So it was almost like the people's brand feeling. But then also when it came to the brand appealing to more people, we went from just like appealing to like 19 year old guys that wore stringers and love bodybuilding. But the real big pivot was when we started to appeal to the female audience. And at the time, bodybuilding for women or lifting weights for women was actually like frowned upon.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Like women didn't want to get involved with it, People didn't really understand it. And we had to figure out a way to make lifting weights cool.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And make it the new coffee spot or the way that you spend time together. Because we identified that actually the way that our female audience or the reason why our female audience trained and what they preferred to almost like motivate them to train was completely different.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And that came with me not being a dude and doing what guys always do and went on to like the audience, people that followed us, our influencers, our creators, and just looked at what our female audience were doing, how they were communicating, how they were interacting with products, what they were posting about their workouts. Again, the same strategy, we just became a mirror to that audience. Right. Instead of assuming. So I guess back to your point, making sure that we stayed close to our audience by listening and making sure that we took what they were saying, how they were behaving. And we use that as the, the starting point of our strategy. Making sure we didn't remove barriers to connections, of friction to connection, by ensuring that you can still feel like you could reach out and touch to the brand, but then also making sure that we only worked with people that we actually really aligned with.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
We never almost like caged any influencers to post a particular way. We always wanted to work with people that we wanted them to be themselves.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And as long as themselves aligns with who we are. And that's the way that we worked. Right. So we always wanted to make sure that authenticity at its core was always the driving force behind everything that we did. And they still do that till this day.
Host/Co-Host
Yeah. I think to your point, you know, it's so easy when you're thinking about your own brand, whether that's a personal brand or you are building your own company. It's easy to look at competitors and think, how can I be more like them? Or like raised to their caliber. And I think to your point, looking at brands like Nike and Adidas and Puma, like Nike to me represents pro U.S. athletes, Puma feels a bit more European to at least a Female from the Midwest and gymshark. When I think of gymshark, I think of the at home bodybuilder or like the, the bodybuilder in the local gym. Like I don't necessarily think about a specific person, I think about a type of person. And I think you paying attention to that and leaning into what's with their content. I think so often we get in this comparison itis kind of mode when instead there's so much we can study about other people. So when you looked at those pieces of content that was working on those individuals platform, like what were you taking away? How were you studying it to model it back on your own platform?
Alfred Samba
So what we did is created a system.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
I think a lot of businesses will find it very difficult to replicate what we did at gymshark simply because of the way that they're set up.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And how we set up was we knew that we couldn't almost like spend more money than the bigger brands. Right. We knew that our production value was not going to be higher, but what we knew that we could do is we could connect.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So what we would do is we'd have this roster of influencers and content creators that would create content on that platform will just almost like curate the best content that performed on their platforms and they will almost like be elevated to the gymshark account.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And that's where it started. And then over time you start to recognize patterns of the type of content that works.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
A lot of the times if you look at the gymshark feed right now, there's rarely any pictures of one person in isolation.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
People always want to feel like they're part of the Avengers or the collective.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And that was the thing that sold Gymshark is whilst a lot of sports brands almost like champion individual athletes and the individual brilliance and they focused on aspiration, we focus on relatability and connection.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And community. And I'm not going to use the word family, but it felt more like a group of people coming together on the same journey as opposed to you being on the journey on your own.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And that was a key insight that we spotted. But then also we also recognize that content creators are better content creators than us.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So why are we going to try to create like that when we can just like work with them as also an extension of our production team?
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And the key thing there is not only would we focus on content that's highly performing and curate those, but then our talent or athletes would tell us trends that are happening like where they see the content space. There was a two way conversation.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
There was a real relationship.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
We worked with talent on a long term, we didn't, we rarely did one off activations, only when there was like a Black Friday or a summer sale as a moment for that. But for the most part is an integrated partnership as opposed to just a one way transactional relationship of the business forcing its initiative or forcing its approach down people's throats. If anything, the talent will tell us and our community team will tell us what's happening on the ground and how do we take that on board. And the other side will communicate to our teams the challenges that we're facing, the goals we're looking to achieve and they would recommend the best way to go about it.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So I guess to summarize, the two way conversation and relationship was a game changer for us at gymshark. We didn't just use social and influencers to yell and the listening aspect and changing our business off the back of that was actually a key important step for the business.
Host/Co-Host
Yeah, I think people talk about this like community led growth or community commerce and those have become buzzwords. But like, what do you personally define that as? Like, what is it in your experience that that actually means in practice?
Alfred Samba
Yeah. So I'm going to start with where I see the world going. I made a massive bet to leave gymshark to start Butterfly Effects simply because I believe in the future of community commerce and the fact that it's going to influence or affect the success of businesses not just in the B2C side, but also in the B2B side. The reason why I believe so is because if you just look at where the world is right now, IQ is being democratized with AI and all that kind of stuff.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So, so tech is becoming better, AI is their product quality and access to quality materials products is becoming more and more democratized.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So how do brands stand out and how do you help people make a decision? I think that the brands that will double down on eq, emotional intelligence and connection are the ones that are going to win the next generation of marketing. The marketing war of the next generation is like how can you out connect more than the other brand?
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And the key reason behind that is because at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is scale trust.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And people buy from brands that they love and that they trust.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And first how your product looked would be the differentiator because other people couldn't match that because you maybe had more money, you had more design talent, et cetera, et cetera. But then if I can do that on AI prompt, that's no longer a differentiator for what quality and trust and love is. It's going to be about your efforts, it's going to be how you storytell, it's going to be what you actually do as a business, right? And I think a lot of businesses think that they can out content their way into the community commerce. No, you actually have to do things right that align with the statements and the promises that you're making. And this all started off in the pandemic. If you think about the amount of statements, virtual signaling that was happening in the marketing space during the pandemic and all the other movements that happened since that point, there's a lot of people with like black squares and statements and they never actually acted on those, right? So over time the audiences recognize not to trust the words that brands say or the stories that they tell, but the actions that they make. Because now they're keeping receipts, right? But actually for you to be able to be a community led brand going forward and to really capitalize on community commerce, you, you need to lead the actions as much as your words, right? And your statements. And actually you should actually remove statements altogether. You just do, right? So it's actually better off for you as a brand to say what do we believe in, what matters to us and how do we show that? And the content should be documenting you doing that in action, right? And now going back to a more like tactical business point, right? If you think about a website, a website is a place where people shop right now. But then if you look at like countries like China, even like India, like a lot of people are making a lot of their decisions on like WeChat and WhatsApp, right? So, so now you don't even need a website like my company. Our website is absolutely terrible. Everyone's converting through LinkedIn, right? So you don't even have to go to the website anymore. The credibility and the trust that you can generate on platform and on channels is enough for people to make that purchasing decision, right? So if you're still worrying about spending 100 grand on your next website, oh my gosh, you're behind, right? You need to be meeting the consumer where they're at longer. The days where we have to wait for people to come to our shop, our shop has to be a pop up shop where they are, right? And that's where the world and the shift is going, right? Now and brands that still build these build and they will come businesses, they're going to get left behind, man.
Host/Co-Host
Yeah, no, they're, they're definitely not speaking to the times. They're not leading with. If you're going to say the stuff like followed up with the action, like you're saying, we've seen in the US market lots of widespread bans for certain brands who are signaling one direction and then making policy changes another and doing things that really offend a large group of people. And brands have to be paying attention to what their brands stand for. And I know you've replicated that community led growth like not just with Gymshark, but with Netflix and Bumble and McDonald's and Square. And I'm curious what core principles or strategies you're seeing work consistently. Because we're talking about lots of different industries, lots of different brand sizes. So like, where does it all come back to? Like what is the core behind all of that community led growth?
Alfred Samba
Well, to break it down into very like simple terms, I believe that no, no brand is entitled to a community. Like no one's born saying that they want to be part of a community of a brand.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
Communities already exist. It's brands role and duty to identify the community that best suits with them and earn the rights to be their leader.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Is effectively how it works, right. The bodybuilding community already existed before Gymshark.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Like females who lift already existed before Gymshark. They're just not represented by a brand. They didn't have a uniform, if you will.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Red Bull did the same thing with extreme sports bands at the same thing with skateboarding.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
It's like. And usually, as you can see from the trend there, find one on the rise that's kind of almost like counterculture. It's youth driven. Not all the time, but then just find an audience that's like on the rise or a trend that's on the rise, but there's no recognized uniform or that's owning that, that almost like that space. And then you go over there, you understand what matters to that community and how you win that trust and you demonstrate that.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
So really what it is, it's almost like where the brand is, where the community is. How do you bridge trust?
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
And there is different almost like approaches. There's how you build trust in a short period of time with a campaign, right? So that the people that are the right community members see that you're doing the activity or you're doing the thing that you want them to See, but there's also a more sustainable way of how you build that over time.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So typically what you'll see with a bigger brand is they want to do something short term, short burst.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And then our goal is to say, okay, who's the recognized community? And then we formulate the best way for us to be able to make sure they don't miss the important bulletin campaign or whatever. However, if you think about it, in the modern day era, the best brands are not built campaign to campaign, they're built every single day.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So really you want to use that as a start point to then be able to interact with people on a more regular basis. You're seeing a lot of movie stars becoming Netflix stars now, right. And doing like serious content.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So just popping up once in a while is not enough for you to be able to win trust, generate almost like a fan level advocacy for your brand, and actually really take advantage of what's at our disposal with community marketing.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
You need to be able to create a flywheel where you show up every single day.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So going back to your point, it's the bridge between the brand and its intended community, establishing what are the pillars of trust that exist there and how you demonstrate it. But then over time, creating a flywheel where you can show up every single day in the most efficient way possible, but the most thoughtful way possible. Those are kind of like the things that I've seen have been really, really consistent.
Host/Co-Host
Yeah. In the US I've definitely heard rumblings about people concerned about a recession around the corner. But in the meantime, I've heard plenty of people talk about what's already here is a trust recession and that people are losing trust in brands they previously did or people or politics, obviously. But I'm curious when you have a group that you want to speak to that's hurt that has been led astray in the past or had that like signaling done where, you know, they thought they were potentially cared about and then it was all kind of for nothing. How do you win that back in a way that feels authentic?
Alfred Samba
First and foremost, don't make promises that you can't keep. And second, whilst trust is like quick to lose, you can regain it back through action.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
I always say to brands that once you break trust, it's just like a relationship that people always say actions speak louder than words.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And I think that instead of trying to like track back or, or almost like talk over the noise, just do.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Like work with people that actually have trust and be a platform for them to fulfill whatever it is that they're looking to achieve. Understand what barriers exist within your audience and take them down.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Create things that other people are not creating. That's actually has the audience in mind. If you spend as much time almost like doing or undoing the harm that you've caused that people will recognize it.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Especially if it comes from a genuine space. It's almost like I remember the term the nice guy finishes last.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
But then that's not the case in the modern day era that we're in. It's almost like a brand should humanize itself and say instead of me trying to almost like selfishly or at least at the end of the day all businesses are there to make money. But then are you there to make money by adding value?
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And actually providing benefits and being useful to people or either to land grab on your terms.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
It doesn't really work that way anymore.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
First brands had all the power. If you had more money, you had more share of voice, et cetera, et cetera. Now that's not going to be that's going to differentiate you from another brand. It's going to be how you out connect with people, how you listen to people, how thoughtful you are, how actually bring together like you know, how powerful. You asked, we listened. Like post is, that is a marketing campaign in itself. Just listen and give the audience what they want and a lot of brands just can't do it.
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Host/Co-Host
I think a good example recently McDonald's brought back after literally nine years of their audience asking for for the crunch wrap or whatever it's called the snack wrap. Excuse me, I don't want to confuse Taco Bell and McDonald's fans. I, I'm sorry for offending the group, but it took them nine years before they brought something that an audience has been saying all of that time. Like every single post I opened from McDonald's would just be full of people being like when are you bringing back the snack wrap? It started to get like almost meme worthy. It was hilarious. How do we make sure we're doing that in a timely fashion? Like obviously brands have things that make sometimes that ask impossible and it's hard to communicate back to the audience that like I did hear you, but I just can't do it right now. But it's in the pipeline. But like so when you're kind of in that middle ground, obviously the smaller you are, the more nimble you are. But if you have any thoughts around that, I'd be curious.
Alfred Samba
Here's where it's going to sound like I'm contradicting myself. But it's only works if you're being very intentional about it, right? Sometimes you want that to bubble up, right? Because you want people to care. And I always say to people that if everyone's like yelling at us in our comment section and it's not because of wrong them, it's just because they want something of ours. That's a good thing, right? And sometimes you should use it to your advantage, letting it the temperament go up enough so when the right time comes in, you can demonstrate that you asked, we listened.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
But in some time it's not even in the big things that people are asking for because you want to sometimes keep it exclusive because if it's then widely available, does that demand go away? Do people get over it? Do you just bring it back over time?
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
I think that that's depends on the brand, depends on the thing but there's other things that happen either in your stores or online or narratives, and people don't even think the brand are looking, right? And I'll give you two examples. The first one is a McDonald's one. But can I get a right, everyone can relate to that moment and where does that insight come from? The people that listen on the other side, I bet you somebody made a joke, right? Or I bet you they have like a running total that every time somebody says that they're going to give someone a dollar, right? And then that probably started as like a behavioral thing that's happening in their stores. And they said, you know what, this could be our super bowl ad, right? So that's behaviorals. I believe that social is behavioral psychology at scale, right? If you listen close enough, the answers to your next campaign products, your future is all already there in the mentions where you're not at it, right? That's where you should look, right? And I'll give you the second example. So in the uk we have a restaurant called Nando's, right? It's a bit of a cult hero. I think our American counterparts have also heard about it now, right, because we talk about it so much. What would happen is when you go to Nando's, not only do they ask you, have you been to Nando's before? And people are usually like, of course, people use pride by not even having a menu, right, to demonstrate that they're regular. But the other thing that they do is when you decide at the time they've changed it. But if you wanted a Coca Cola or water, it didn't really matter because it just gave you a glass to get whatever you wanted, right? So what people would do is they would go and ask for water and not get charged, right? Get the glass and then go and top up a Coca Cola. And one time the admin on Twitter basically tweeted saying, for all those that ask for water and top of Coke, we see you, right? And everyone was like, oh my God, they're watching, right? So these like micro moments or macro moments where people are like, we want this back, right? And you turn that into a campaign. But there's other moments that happen that it's actually good for you to address because you're demonstrating that you're actually at one with your audience. Do you know what I mean?
Host/Co-Host
Yeah. No, I think that's a great example, I'm curious of other more community led campaigns with other brands you've worked with, maybe some that were more long term rather than an Individual post. Talk to me about how you went about from concept to execution.
Alfred Samba
Okay, so I'll give an example. So we're currently working with a brand called Dutch Barn. Dutch Barn is co owned by Ricky Gervais.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And it's basically an alcohol brand.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And because there's two different ways that you can work with a client in this space, I believe there's a short term campaign which has a defined start and defined end goal.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And there's what I like to call a growth client where there's like from this time frame, let's say for example, a three year time frame, we want to get from point A to point B.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And we're going to iterate every day until we get to that point.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And that's what I like to call a growth client and what you'll do. So, so I basically took the whole gymshark experience that I had and I turned it into a company.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And one of the key aspects that we had is that the social team, although being so out there, and I always talk about the fact that you can make or break a brand with a tweet, we had the least amount of red tape.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Because I understood the brand, understood the stakeholders, understood what mattered to the business and I made sure that what we're doing on a content side was carefully adjacent to what we actually wanted to achieve as a business. It was just a pretty bold version of what we're trying to get out there.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So. And we aim to still do the same thing. So the first thing we ever do, we never touch anybody's socials or adopt like a growth strategy without actually sitting down with the key stakeholders and having an immersion session with them. And in this session it's not just the marketing team, but the CFOs there, the COOs there. We have to understand how you do business. Because at the end of the day, if you look at an in house team, I still feel like social is best run in house personally. Because if you as a business don't care about it that much and you outsource that element of your business, at least the execution, there's a barrier there of connection.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
Your social agency might be great, of course, but it's not you. Yeah. Social agency is not going to be there forever. So therefore what happens when they leave or you change agencies or whatever happens, you don't own that anymore.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So I always think that it's important, the in house team to be bought into what it is that we're doing because they own it, Right. And also usually if you think about who actually runs the business, it's probably the cfo, right, and the coo. And if they don't understand what we're doing and why we're doing it and why it matters and why this actual post transcends to this translates to this, we're doomed from the start, right? So we tend to bring everybody in. We have an immersion session, we ask people a series of questions and everybody's individual on their own laptops, right? And they answer it based on their perspective. And we see how aligned the whole team is. And the goal is to get everybody aligned on the goal, who we are, how we want to show up, et cetera, et cetera. And then we personify the brand and then we start iterating, right? So effectively what happens is we get everyone on the same team, make sure that everyone's speaking to each other, we make sure that everything is super aligned and then we start to create with the most frictionless starting point. Let's start easy. We call it a crawl, walk, run, right? Let's start with something super easy and then let's create a flywheel out of that.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
So with Ricky Gervais's company, Dutch Bond, what we did is we said, okay, so Ricky is associated with the brand, which means that our moat is our affiliation or connection. It's comedy, right? So the community that were best almost like positioned to win and claim is the comedic audience or people that love funny content or people that create funny content, right? So we said, you know what we're going to do? Ricky died, right? We would lose Ricky, of course. Why don't we go on a tour to find the next Ricky Gervais So at the end of the year, somebody can open up for Ricky Gervais at Wembley, right. And what we'll do is do a series of stand up comedy events in the lead up to that to find the next Ricky and we'll start in the uk. It's where we're at. It's a lot easier to control. We can fail fast and then we can build that up. And that's what we did. Right? So we decided to do that like in a two month basis. Went from ideation, single idea, call it Spirit of Comedy.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
Spirit of Comedy Vodka Dutch Barn. Right? And then we basically created like this thing where we got professional setup comedians to become the host of this and just went onto this like, like tournament.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
But the good thing about that is, Chris, a flywheel because you have content of the Back of it. You have interviews off the back of that. Yeah. And then they can become content creators for spinoffs and everything like that.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So you have to just like start with a single idea, a single focus, make sure that everyone's on the same team, and then just start with a piece of content that can create a flywheel.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And then create spin offs at the back of that. And that's the best way to go.
Host/Co-Host
Yeah. That's such a cool concept and I think really illustrates that it doesn't have to be what you think it needs to be. It could be anything, as long as it makes sense for the Persona of the brand. Because I don't necessarily think comedy competition. When I think about vodka, like those aren't the things that come up for me. But that's why it works, because of who you're going after. And I think that's a really incredible concept. I'm wondering what you think people are doing poorly. Where are they fucking this all up?
Alfred Samba
Well, where they are is that I think. I think brands have main character syndrome and they believe that people should love their brand because they love their brand or because they work for that brand or because they own their brand.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So it's kind of like when somebody goes onto a date and keeps speaking about themselves and how good they are.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
That's effectively what people are doing. They don't actually listen to the other person and recognize which part of me is relevant for the conversation. Which part of me are they most attracted to? That's the first one, Right. It's like the paint a pretty bow about. We have this message we want to force down your throat. I want to spend, spend, spend until you get it. People just reject that.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
You might have a lot of views, but doesn't mean that people actually give a shit about you. And that's the first one, Right. The second one is brands still want to own all of the creators.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
What I mean by that is that they think that they can create at the speed or to the level of connectivity that a creator can. And you can't. You just can't.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
It's very inefficient, it's very costly. What you should do is find creators that create to the standard that you want to. But they are better at connecting and have a better operational system than you do and you work alongside them.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
I think that's a much better way to go. And I think, like, thirdly, I think that they just don't listen. They just don't listen. Like I think, I think the biggest opportunity we would use Instagram story brackets to almost like find what the color scheme of the next season is going to be by asking people which color wins when you like this. We started our cheat meal limited edition collaboration, but asking people, what's your favorite cheat meal and pizza one. Surprise, surprise. That's the graphic for our cheat meal collaboration, right? Getting like 140,000 votes, right? Like, it's like, it's like a lot of people think that the start and end of the content they've created is with the content itself, but really the content is like 80% of the experience. The other 20% is left by how the audience, what the audience does with it. And if you're smart enough. And what we do is we don't create a piece of content and then leave it for chance, right? It's kind of like what a YouTuber does. They create the thumbnail and the headline first and then they work backwards from there. Whenever we do an activation, whenever we do a piece of content, whenever we do an event, we always ask the team, what's the headline, right? And then even what's the article that supports the headline? And if we like it and get excited by it, then we create the content and create the moment, right? So it's like the other way around, right? You're almost like, if we were not working for this brand, would we give a shit about this thing, right? And then if you get able to create that headline, that moment, and then we're like, oh, I would love to see that happen. Let me make it happen, right? And I think a lot of people just want to force things down and they almost like put on this hat working for a brand and it's all like, oh, yeah, people are going to love this. And then they take the hat off when they leave the office and they're like skipping ads that do exactly the same thing, right? And that's the thing that I think that a lot of brands get wrong is that they're not creating content that they will consume themselves. You know what I mean?
Host/Co-Host
Oh, I totally know what you mean. And I think this is a really big barrier for personal brands, especially ones that are teaching on a specific subject matter because they have the knowledge about that subject matter, but that's often not at all what they're consuming on a day to day basis. And it's like, well, how do you reach the people that are interested in the subject that you teach about, but reach them in a way that you're talking about content that's not at all related because that's not what you consume. I think it can end up being a real battle of like, personal identity. I'm curious because obviously you've, you have your own personal brand on LinkedIn, of course, like sharing your insights and takes from all of these things that have kind of happened around you. Do you find yourself ever confused about what to say?
Alfred Samba
Funny enough, everything that I'm talking about right now, I've never, I don't, I don't speak about on, on my socials, right? Not at all. Like, like. Because I recognize very, very quickly that users on LinkedIn, which is my platform of choice in a very what's in it for me mentality. And you don't have a lot of time to present that, right? So I just use the platform based on the user behavior that's on the platform, right? So on LinkedIn, I was like, I could try to give them a lot of like, marketing, almost like information, but the first thing that's going to happen is they're going to be like, well, of course you're saying that because that's what you sell, right? There's a distrust element because people's dms are bombarded with salespeople trying to like, sell you something thing. So I said, you know what, who is my actual audience and who are they as a human, right? And I was like, well, the common denominator between everybody that's of value to me is that they are leaders or aspiring leaders, right? They want to be a person that oversees an organization, a department, whatever that may be, or they're creative, right? So I'm like, okay, leaders and creative people are my audience, right? Or creative marketing people. So I was like, okay, what's of value to them? What's my unselfish almost I give to them that will make them a better human, right? I just give out leadership advice, right? Especially leadership advice that I've personally had to go through. I don't just like go on chat GPT and say, give me 10 leadership advice. I'm just like, as I'm going through this whole, like, leadership journey and I sucked at it and I'm getting better at it. I just post about that, right? Because more people are going through the same thing, right? So what you will see is the chief, like marketing officer or CEO of the major organization will DM me saying I was going through that, right? Let's have a coffee and chat about that, right? Or I'll talk about like a contrarian view on creativity based on like what I'm seeing right there, or big up a campaign that we have nothing to do with.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
And, and then people will be like, oh, I really love that too. Et cetera, et cetera. Then what will happen is you create a connection moment, right? And we'll speak, we'll have a coffee, we'll have a call about it. And they'll be like, well, what do you do? And I'll say, well, I actually do this. And they'll be like, oh, we have that problem.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
And then that's how it starts, right? You don't sell people things that they don't, what they call it, they don't have a problem with. If anything, I think a lot of people ask us, like, what do we offer? I'm like, what's on top of your to do list? That's the most painful thing you're dealing with right now. And we can put a team around that to help remove that pain. That's what our company is, right? It's a creative and marketing pain removal organization. Right. And the best way we do that is through, like, community. It's like, what, what is the problem right now? Oh, we can't hire the right people. Okay, cool. How to team set up? Here's our network of people that can help you. And let's put that all over there. What's the next thing?
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
And you build and you build and you build rapport based on like, you wanting to help that individual as a human.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
Before you can think about Coca Cola, think about Karen at Coca Cola. You can help Karen and Coca Cola. Then you help Coca Cola is the way that we saw about it.
Host/Co-Host
Yeah, I think that's such a fresh perspective and very much not what people are talking about. Like, I think so often they're giving you, you know, the 30 hooks you need to be using is stop the scroll. And I'm like gonna pull my hair out if I see one more post. And I am a victim of this too. Like, I have absolutely been the person who's posted cringy content and look back at it later and been like, why did I even bother? Like, of course no one likes it. It's stupid. I need to be connecting with people on a human to human basis. And I think that's what makes your content so attractive is that it feels like we're friends even though we don't know each other. And it, I think it ultimately aids in that, like, parasocial relationship, which some people hate. Like, as a creator, not everybody likes having those Parasocial relationships, I think they can get weird and uncomfortable at times. How do you balance that? When, whether we're talking on a brand basis or a personal basis, these people feeling like they are connected to you when you really don't necessarily know them at all.
Alfred Samba
I'm very fortunate that I have a hat, right? Remember? And I'm not by any means calling myself this person Superman and Clark Kent. I used to be like, how stupid is that concept? Because all he is is wearing glasses and not wearing glasses, right? But then I realized when I started wearing a hat and my whole Persona being the person with the hat, when I don't wear the hat, people don't know who the fuck I am, right? It's real. Like I've seen people that have engaged with me online, even people that I know that first reaction is in that's elf. When I'm not wearing my hat, right? And that's allowed me. It's kind of like Inception with the like spinning thing. When you're like, I'm in a dream versus I'm not in a dream, right? Is that I know that when I'm wearing my hat, I'm in show mode. I'm ready to go. I'm ready for people to like come in people. I'm what I'm almost like, I know people are going to recognize me. I'm ready for that. The one I don't have if people leave me alone, right? So I've been able to create a thing that almost like disconnects me from this non real world and makes me have a delicate balance. I always think that everybody should have their own signature, a thing that people know them for that's almost like makes them a symbol as opposed to like it's not human and they attack you as a human, but they see you more as a symbol, right. Obviously that's really, really important. And the other side is that I don't share like my like about me personally. I don't really do. I? I share more my thinking and my perspective on things, right. So depending on the platform that you go on to, you'll see a different layer of myself, right? Like I don't go to this level of depth of information on like Instagram or on, on. On TikTok or on LinkedIn. I leave it for the platform like this or a Fireside Chat because then you can feel the energy, right? And also if you are in the mind frame to consume long form content, you're not trying to get like sound bites out of me, right? You're trying to actually consume the information. So instead of me trying to, like, do this online in like, platforms that people are just looking for the sound bite, what you'll do is you might take what I said 20 seconds ago in isolation and remove the whole entire context, right? So what's the point?
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
So I just kind of like pick the right platform where people have different levels of connectivity, but. And then I just mirror the audience, right? So it's like if people want to, like, get like. I also, whenever I go to a talk, I listen to the people that spoke before me and that helps me evaluate how deep I have to go or what are the audience reacting to so effectively, unknowingly. The same thing I do for social. The same thing I do for everybody.
Host/Co-Host
You're just mirroring at the end of the day. Yeah. No, that's incredible. Any final piece of advice before we wrap up today?
Alfred Samba
So it's really important. Before you commit, dive into, embark on almost like social commerce community journey to ensure that you identify who it is you're looking to serve. And I use the word serve super importantly. Like, like, not by accident, because that's what it is, right? If you want, you can grow in whatever way you want. And there's different ways that you can drive commercials. But if you want to take this route, you have to identify a community that you want to serve. And your goal and how you win is if you service that community better than anybody else. And it keeps showing up, right? Without using tactical language or anything like that, you just have to just find the audience, identify their pain, mold them, and just keep showing up.
Guest/Influencer
Right?
Alfred Samba
It's like a relationship, right? The moment you start buying them flowers, right? Or listening to like, what your partner has to say, or doing those little things that they really love that other people don't know, or the moment you stop doing that and pouring into the relationship, that's the moment people start to look for somebody else. It's the same thing that happens in this space, right? You have to. It's a forever thing, right? The more you show up better than the other person, the more you out listen, the more you out service, the more you out value, the more people stay. And that's probably like the big summary of everything I've just like waffled through.
Host/Co-Host
Oh, you didn't waffle. It was incredible. I have so many personal takeaways that I can't wait to implement and think through because I definitely don't have all of the pieces put together yet. But I'm simmering on it and I'm excited to do more of that. I want to know where the listeners can find more of you find more about Butterfly Effect. And I know word on the street is you have a new course and I'd love for you to share that.
Alfred Samba
Yeah, there's a few places where you can find me some Alfred Samba on all social platforms. LinkedIn is where I'm probably the most active. Instagram is where I post about, like my life. It's almost like fomo. It's like, what have I been doing whilst I've been like posting on LinkedIn and that's probably like my two biggest platforms.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
And then I also butterfly effects on LinkedIn. It's probably the best way to find us. There's also Butterfly Effect, but xyz, if you want to go onto our website, our website ship as I mentioned. So you're better off just going to DMming me on LinkedIn and then we can talk about how we can collaborate together, but also among Teachable.
Guest/Influencer
Right.
Alfred Samba
So if you search Alfred Samba on Teachable, the Fedora forum is the name of the section and then we can talk about how you can build your own personal brand. So I'm actually giving away my, my whole model of how people can go from like, pretty much like starting off that journey to becoming a pro on personal branding on LinkedIn, particularly on this case. But then a lot of the, the methods that I give away is actually transferable to other platforms. Right. I will be having more courses based on what people have fed back and I'm really looking forward to just like teaching and sharing because that's what gives me a lot of energy.
Host/Co-Host
Oh, well, it's going to be incredible. And to make that easier for you guys to find, I will link it up for you@bossproject.com Samba S A M B A so that you can find his course and more about the personal branding kind of exercises he's walking you through. Thank you so much for your time. I know you're an incredibly busy guy. I appreciate you being here and I cannot wait to get this in the hands of my listeners.
Alfred Samba
I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much for having me and I'm really, really honored.
Abigail Pumphrey
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Host/Co-Host
Okay.
Abigail Pumphrey
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Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Episode 963: Behind Gymshark’s 1.5M to 20M Follower Explosion: A Masterclass in Community Growth with Marketing Mastermind Alfred Samba
Released on June 24, 2025
In Episode 963 of the Strategy Hour podcast, host Abagail Pumphrey welcomes Alfred Samba, the CEO and Co-Founder of Butterfly Effect, to discuss the remarkable growth of Gymshark’s social media presence. Alfred shares his extensive experience in scaling Gymshark’s community from 1.5 million to over 20 million followers, providing actionable insights into community-driven marketing strategies that can be applied to various online businesses.
Alfred Samba begins by recounting his entry into Gymshark in 2015. Initially working at a marketing agency, Alfred was a strong advocate for leveraging social media as a powerful tool for brand growth. Inspired by figures like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, he believed that social media was “free real estate” where brands could outperform larger competitors by mastering audience engagement.
Notable Quote:
“I felt that place doesn't have to necessarily be a physical space. It can be in the mind.”
— Alfred Samba [05:40]
Upon joining Gymshark, Alfred focused on building an authentic connection with the audience. Initially, the strategy involved high-quality content and curated posts to elevate the brand's image, akin to industry giants like Nike. However, Alfred quickly realized that Gymshark’s audience desired relatability over polished imagery.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“Gymshark was a mirror to the audience that it represented.”
— Alfred Samba [08:01]
Alfred defines community-led growth as the process of building trust and emotional connections with a specific audience. He emphasizes that communities pre-exist and brands must identify and earn the trust of these communities rather than expecting them to form naturally around a brand.
Key Principles:
Notable Quote:
“Communities already exist. It's the brand's role and duty to identify the community that best suits them and earn the rights to be their leader.”
— Alfred Samba [21:09]
Alfred outlines several strategies that were pivotal in Gymshark’s growth:
Notable Quote:
“We focus on relatability and connection and community, making it feel like a group of people coming together on the same journey.”
— Alfred Samba [14:02]
Alfred shares a pivotal moment where he almost lost his job by initially mimicking larger brands’ social strategies. Realizing the need for authenticity, he shifted Gymshark’s approach to create content that resonated deeply with their specific audience.
Key Takeaways:
Notable Quote:
“Instead of going from unpolished to polished, we were kind of like in the mid-range, maintaining that stories need to come from an authentic place.”
— Alfred Samba [08:12]
Alfred discusses his vision for the future of community commerce, emphasizing the importance of emotional intelligence and genuine connections over traditional marketing tactics. He believes that as technology democratizes product quality and access, brands must focus on building trust and emotional bonds to stand out.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“The brands that will double down on EQ, emotional intelligence, and connection are the ones that are going to win the next generation of marketing.”
— Alfred Samba [16:16]
Alfred provides examples of how brands like McDonald’s and Nando’s effectively utilized community feedback to drive marketing campaigns:
Key Takeaways:
Notable Quote:
“Social is behavioral psychology at scale. If you listen close enough, the answers to your next campaign, products, your future is all already there in the mentions where you're not at it.”
— Alfred Samba [29:50]
Alfred shares his approach to executing long-term community-led campaigns, using his work with Dutch Barn (co-owned by Ricky Gervais) as an example. By creating engaging, community-focused events, Butterfly Effect fosters a sustainable relationship between the brand and its audience.
Strategies:
Notable Quote:
“Start with a single idea, a single focus, make sure that everyone’s on the same team, and then just start with a piece of content that can create a flywheel.”
— Alfred Samba [37:28]
Alfred discusses his personal branding strategy on LinkedIn, emphasizing the importance of sharing genuine insights and leadership experiences rather than overt self-promotion. By focusing on providing value and fostering authentic connections, he builds a trusted personal brand that attracts meaningful engagements.
Key Strategies:
Notable Quote:
“I see the content is like 80% of the experience. The other 20% is left by how the audience interacts with it.”
— Alfred Samba [40:04]
Alfred concludes with actionable advice for brands looking to adopt community-led growth strategies:
Notable Quote:
“It's like a relationship—the more you show up, better than the other person, the more you out listen, the more you out service, the more you out value, the more people stay.”
— Alfred Samba [50:25]
Episode 963 of the Strategy Hour podcast offers a deep dive into the principles and practices of community-led growth through the lens of Alfred Samba’s successful tenure at Gymshark. By emphasizing authenticity, consistent engagement, and genuine connections, brands can leverage community-driven strategies to achieve exponential growth and sustainable success. Whether you’re a small business owner, service provider, or digital product seller, the insights shared in this episode provide a roadmap for building a loyal and engaged online community.
Resources and Further Learning:
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