Celebrating ‘Gym Faces’ with Lucky Generals and The Gym Group
Wedgie faces, power faces, just-broken-up-with faces and others are just a handful of the grimaces you can find under the umbrella of the term ‘gym face’. We’ve got one, you’ve got one, everybody’s got one. If you’ve ever lifted a dumbbell in your life - congratulations, you’ve pulled a gym face! You might not have seen it in the mirror, but it’s there, for everybody else in the gym to see. Good news is, they all have one too - from veiny foreheads to red eyes and sweaty temples, the possibilities are endless.
That’s why The Gym Group is celebrating what our faces are capable of when it comes to harnessing all of our physical abilities in lifting half of our body weight or doing that last push up that feels like hell. The campaign makes us all feel better about having a gym face and why it is important to have fun with it, rather than try to resist it (which probably makes it worse). The film for the campaign was borne out of a collaboration between The Gym Group and Lucky Generals, with the song for the campaign being written in-house by Lucky Generals and recorded by Leland Music. On 21 September, the ‘Gym Face’ song came out on all music streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music.
Gareth Morgan, one of the creatives at Lucky Generals, was happy to write the song, despite the fact that he has no musical background. In his own words: “My musical background consists mainly of me fucking around with my guitar at home and occasionally playing in bands that never play gigs.” A semi-solid foundation that allowed him to write this banger of an ad tune that has definitely stuck with us and will be accompanying listeners to their next gym sesh.
LBB’s Zoe Antonov caught up with Gareth as well as Danny Hunt, creative director at Lucky Generals, to find out more about why they made the song, what the process was like and how long Gary can plank for.
LBB> What was the initial idea behind the campaign and how was the brief approached from the get-go?
Danny> Well, the brief was a pitch against some very good agencies. We obviously wanted to win. We pitched with an idea that could transcend through the whole business. ‘We're With You’ is going to show people that The Gym Group will do whatever it takes to support you on your fitness journey - starting with making the gym a less intimidating place to be.
We found that there are lots of different barriers to going to the gym for people, so we wanted to tackle these, and thought that a campaign that had a song to show support would be quite funny. Especially in the serious sector of gyms. And if those songs were tunes that people could work out to too, we could target people on their exercise playlists.
LBB> At what point was it decided that you, as a creative, would write the song?
Gareth> It was more out of necessity than anything. Presenting songs in script form for a pitch is always a bit shit. It’s better if you can press play on something. So, I thought I may as well try and make some demos. It was a classic David Brent situation of ‘Go and get the guitar’.
Danny> Pressing play on the film of Gaz (Gary), sitting on the edge of his bed with a dusty acoustic guitar made the pitch proper funny. When we won, the first thing the clients wanted to do was meet him. He’s like our very own, erm… Garfunkle?
Gareth> Gary Styles?
LBB> What kind of conversations did you have with the team around that time?
Danny> Lots of late-night conversations, mainly about what to get from Deliveroo and how long Gaz can plank. We also talked a lot about insights. We didn’t just want a funny song about exercising. Gym Face came about because we knew people were intimidated about how they look when they go to the gym, so we thought we could take that head on, literally with a Gym face.
LBB> What is your personal experience with music?
Gareth> I’ve messed around in bang-average bands for most of my life and I was once in a Good Shoes music video.
Danny> Someone threw a full pint through the air at a gig in Hyde Park once and I jumped up and caught it. I didn't spill a drop. I got a bigger cheer than the band.
Gareth> Was it beer?
Danny> No, it was warm.
Gareth> Nice.
Danny> I thought it was beer.
LBB> Have you ever had an experience where you did something similar?
Gareth> Nope. Full ad-track-writing virgin, me.
Danny> I’ve had the rights to a track and changed the words. I’ve bought a track and filmed to it, and I’ve commissioned a track. But I’ve never actually made a track from scratch like this, you know where you’re the one telling them what to do. It’s not easy.
LBB> So tell me about how the experience of making the track from start to finish went.
Gareth> First, we got the idea. Then, I went home to my bedroom to strum myself into oblivion until we had a demo we liked. Then, we pitched it. Then, we won. Then, the client bought the pitch work (!). Then, we got on the blower to Leland who found us a producer in LA to bring it to life. They sent us about 50 different versions, and we noodled ‘til we were happy. Then, the final piece of the jigsaw was to find a comedian to sing on it. Luckily, we found Will Hislop, whose very silly singing style really was the cherry on the cake.
LBB> What were the biggest challenges of the making?
Danny> I think time was the biggest factor. We did the whole thing in like 4/5 weeks.
And getting the tone right was tough. We wanted it to be good enough to stand up as a track, with a good hook. But silly enough that you’d know we weren’t taking ourselves too seriously. Leland music helped massively and Munzie at GCRS was worth his weight.
LBB> And what about the most fun parts of it?
Gareth> Making a really silly song to launch a brand in an industry that takes itself far too seriously.
Danny> I thought working with Will was mint. We had loads of different artists sing over the track and it just wasn’t funny. But when Will came in he just had us all in stitches. That was a relief!
LBB> Writing a track when you don't have much experience is one thing, but combining it with comedy was a completely different animal - how did you manage to do that? What were your inspos?
Gareth> To be honest, if the lyrics had been serious, I think it would have been much harder. A sincere song about going to the gym… I just did a little vom in my mouth. References were your classic musical comedy guys: Bo Burnham, Flight of the Conchords, Tenacious D. Oh, and Richard Cheese of course.
