Battle of the Brands: HRX Vs Gymshark

It’s been around eight weeks of working from home since the lockdown was declared on 25 March. People have been largely respecting the social distancing guidelines and haven’t stepped out of their homes except for groceries and essential goods like medicines. But this begs the million-dollar question –  how do we stay fit if we can’t be active? Online workouts and Instagram and Facebook live sweat sessions are on a roll right now. Everyone wants to emerge from the lockdown as a trimmer version of themselves. So we thought of looking at two fitness brands that have taken India by storm in recent years – HRX by Hrithik Roshan and Gymshark.

 

Both of these fitness brands are more or less similar in their offering – they have gymwear, fitness tips and videos that you can use to work out and stay fit from the comfort of your own homes. The two brands were also founded around the same time. So let’s take a look at which fitness brand is making waves in India, now.

 

Talkwalker, a social media analytics company, based in Luxembourg, takes a closer look at the buzz, using their platform. Talkwalker Analytics analyses the performance of mentions all over the internet and provides key metrics such as engagement, related themes, demographic data, geographic data and influencer data. 

 

Mentions:

 

We took a look at data from the last three months and we see that homegrown brand – HRX (purple) is leading the way with 2.8k mentions on social media. Gymshark (pink)  has been pretty consistent in terms of the number of mentions. The big peak for HRX came in early April when they released a video highlighting founder Hrithik Roshan’s transformation for the movie, War. For Gymshark, most of the mentions and peaks come from their organic follow  ers who are training in their athletic gear. 

 

It must be acknowledged that HRX does have a big advantage over Gymshark since the founder of the brand is one of the most loved superstars in India.

 

                       

Hashtags:

 

Next, let’s look at the hashtags being spoken about in conjunction with both these brands. Surprisingly, the larger word cloud (pink) is associated with Gymshark and the smaller one with HRX. This means that though the mentions of Gymshark may be lower, their markting hashtags are indeed doing well. Unsurprisingly, the hashtag profile of both these brands are about fitness. For HRX, we see that Hrithik Roshan dominates the conversation – with hashtags like #HrithikRoshan, #Hrithik, #war and #yrf being featured prominently. Gymshark hashtags on the other hand are purely about fitness - #gymrat, #gymfail, #gym etc. among the prominent ones.