Ian Borthwick Profile picture
Aug 18, 2020 โ€ข 7 tweets โ€ข 2 min read โ€ข Read on X
While everyone called influencer marketing a fad...

...a 19 year old created the $1.3B Gymshark empire.

Thread ๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡
1/ Launching a new product is tough.

Tougher without almost no budget.

That was the situation for Ben Francis.

A pizza boy launching an apparel company from his momโ€™s garage.

So Ben got creative.
2/ Ben put it all on the line for the 2012 UK fitness expo.

Self-funded, he spent every penny on a booth & hiring niche fitness YouTubers to show up.

The bet paid off.

The booth was a hit. The YouTubers were a hit.

He made $42k the first day.
3/ Ben realized influencers were Gymsharkโ€™s secret weapon.

He couldnโ€™t compete with Nike & Under Armourโ€™s big brand TV budgets.

But these brands overlooked social, and the communities that influencers were building.

This was his opening.
4/ Smart now, but a groundbreaking move in 2012.

Gymshark tripled-down, owning the fitness influencer community.

By 2018, they hit $100m in sales Image
5/ Last week, Gymshark sold a 21% stake of the company at a $1.3B valuation. All without raising money till now.

Congrats @Gymshark @BenFrancis1992 Image
If I launched a podcast or newsletter...would you subscribe

(please say yes) ๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡

presubscribe.me/profile/ianrboโ€ฆ

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More from @ianrborthwick

Jan 12, 2021
๐‚๐จ๐ง๐Ÿ๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง

Iโ€™ve sponsored an influencer with 15M followers that drove....9 purchasers.

Donโ€™t make the same mistake I did.

๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡
๐Ÿ/ ๐ˆ๐ฆ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ ๐ฏ๐ฌ. ๐ˆ๐ง๐Ÿ๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ž๐ง๐œ๐ž

This is the hardest part of influencer marketing.

Followers, views, impressions donโ€™t convert to purchasers linearly.

Here are my favorite signals of true influence....
๐Ÿ/ ๐๐ž๐ซ๐ฌ๐จ๐ง๐š๐ฅ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ-๐…๐ข๐ซ๐ฌ๐ญ

Good influencer marketing is personality-driven, not content-driven.

You watch because of the creator, not because of the content

Ignore...
-Faceless media brands
-Clickbait prank vids
-Highlight reels
Read 10 tweets
Jan 3, 2021
How I went from 0 - 40k followers in a year in a half.

A thread

๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡
1/ ๐‹๐ฎ๐œ๐ค

A drugged David Dobrik called, said I was on the vlog & he wanted to negotiate a promo live ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

I donโ€™t remember the convo, bc the thought 20m ppl listening made me have a panic attack.

Spent the next 12 hrs trying to figure out if we actually had the money.
2/ ๐‚๐ฅ๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐‚๐ก๐š๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ 

We did 15 videos since then, &
I clout-chased everyone.

If David tweeted, I responded immediately.

I amassed a loyal following of 10k+ David Dobrik fans.

Which was cool, but as a 30 year old I was a bit out of my wheelhouse.
Read 6 tweets
Dec 17, 2020
$276,000,000+

Revenue that Ryan Kaji will generate this year.

Heโ€™s the top earning YouTuber & heโ€™s
just 9 years old.

๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡
Ryanโ€™s power is his distribution - 43B channel views.

Where he monetizes 3 ways:

1. Consumer Retail & Licensing
2. Digital Licensing
3. YouTube AdSense
1/ Consumer Sales & Licensing

Ryan has over 1k products in 75k stores, including Target and Walmart.

Sales are up 500% in 3 years.

2018: $42m
2019: $150m
2020: $250m
Read 7 tweets
Dec 6, 2020
2021 Prediction

Weโ€™re about to see a rush of influencer equity deals.

Some thoughts ๐Ÿ‘‡
1/ The Distribution Problem

Distribution a massive challenge for start-ups.

AdWords, Facebook, IG ads are not the growth hacks they used to be.

Big brands figured it out, & have driven prices up.
2/ Enter Influencer Marketing

Suddenly, startups could avoid the Facebook & Google tax by partnering directly with creators.

The problem: prices arenโ€™t cheap.
Read 8 tweets
Nov 21, 2020
A TikTok house lost ~$1M in 6 months...

Now itโ€™s a publicly traded stock.

Thread ๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡
1/ Last week, Clubhouse Media went public via a reserve merger:

โ€ข 4 TikTok Houses
โ€ข 90M combined followers
2/ The pitch:

A new-age media brand, part talent mgmt, part content studio.
Read 9 tweets
Sep 1, 2020
Nike paid Casey Nestiat to film a commercial.

But instead he took the money & traveled the world.

Producing the greatest brand story of all time.

๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡๐Ÿ‘‡
1) @Casey was creatively burnt out.

He just filmed 2 ads for Nike & wanted something different.

So he decided to go rogue...without telling the client.

(a big no-no in the marketing world)
2) In his words:

โ€œConsequences aside, if I could do anything in the world, what would it be?

Do I want to produce another regular advertisement?

No.

I would take this production budget and travel the world.โ€
Read 7 tweets

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