Creating a new architecture of trust for GNC

CLIENT GNC

Year

2020

Services

Audience, Channel + Content Strategy. Creative, Content + Production. Strategy + Applied Data.

BRAND CHALLENGE

GNC, facing significant challenges due to dramatic changes in the retail industry and a series of product setbacks, unfortunately, filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

This situation understandably strained franchise relationships, destabilized its consumer base, and had a notable impact on many of the small and mid-sized communities where GNC operates, which relied on the presence of the company.

Hiring HOW to address the critical post-bankruptcy situation of decision of GNC was crucial in rebuilding brand trust.

OUR STRATEGY

LinkedIn as the engine of reputational rebuilding

After close collaboration with the client, we agreed that LinkedIn would play the pivotal role in HOW we would begin the essential task of rebuilding trust through a strategically integrated, hyper-targeted, optimistic yet empathetic narrative campaign.

Working directly with the CEO and CMO, we developed the corporate position and messaging derivatives and then identified the right audiences, as well as individuals within those audiences. Although the target was primarily B2B – including franchise owners, brand partners, potential hires, local officials, and the media – we also reached targeted thought leaders who had a high degree of influence in the supplement and sports nutrition categories.

HOW shaped different messages for each audience, strategically linked but with content salient to each. We identified those in our LinkedIn outreach via a proprietary model that assessed weighted relevance and the size of individual influence networks, among other factors. We did this for both the GNC and the then CEO’s handles, creating a connected ecosystem of messaging, raising the tide together.