These Challenger Brands Collaborated on a Campaign That Was ‘Pure Chaos’

What do Viagra, cheese, cereal and gyms have in common? 

This isn’t the beginning of a bad joke. Recently in London, four brands that seemingly had nothing to do with each other teamed up for an unexpected collaboration that went viral. 

British men’s health website Numan, online retailer Cheesegeek, cereal maker Surreal and gym operator Gymbox ran side-by-side ads with the headlines, “Harder, Feta, breakFaster, Stronger”—a pun on Daft Punk’s hit song “Harder Better Faster Stronger.” The campaign received more than 1 million views on social media, with one user responding: “This is pure chaos and I love it.” 

Odd brand collaborations are nothing new—think Durex and Diesel or Heinz and Absolut—and can make marketing sense when they create buzz while helping each company reach new audiences. However, it is unusual to see four brands come together instead of two, making it even more of a challenge for such distinct businesses to find common ground. 

“It’s just a stupid idea,” Gymbox brand and marketing director Rory McEntee told Adweek. “We weren’t expecting it to be as viral and successful as it was.” 

A left-field idea

That “stupid idea” started with McEntee, who at Gymbox has overseen other unpredictable brand partnerships. While it is more typical for fitness companies to collaborate with an apparel or protein bar brand, Gymbox has ripped up that playbook by teaming up with OnlyFans to host a burlesque class and microbrewery Tiny Rebel for an “anti-Dry January” fitness class where people lifted kegs instead of weights. 

“We always try to do stuff that’s a little head-turning,” McEntee said. 

For his next marketing move, McEntee had his own head turned by Surreal, a high-protein cereal company founded in 2021. Surreal has grabbed attention in the U.K. for tongue-in-cheek campaigns challenging breakfast food heavyweights such as Kellogg’s. 

“Gymbox is a challenger brand, and Surreal has the same DNA. We both try to do things that are unorthodox, and we don’t have big budgets,” McEntee explained. 

He reached out to Surreal co-founder Kit Gammell “with a left-field idea,” asking if the two could collaborate. They agreed on a theme for their effort: the music of electronic duo Daft Punk. There was no logic to it, really. But McEntee, who is involved with much of Gymbox’s creative output, had held onto a line he’d written referencing a Daft Punk song that had been rejected for another campaign.

Gammell knew the founders of Numan and Cheesegeek, and from there the match was made. Each brand was responsible for designing its own creative putting a spin on the Daft Punk title. 

To break down the campaign’s tagline: “Harder” references Numan, “Feta” is for Cheesegeek, “breakfaster” represents Surreal, and “Stronger” stands for Gymbox.

Tapping into the cheese market

The brands ran the campaign at a subway station in London and shared it on social media. 

Along with a high number of views, each company saw an influx of new followers on their social channels. Gymbox reported a 113% month-on-month increase in traffic to its website, with the growth largely coming from markets outside its U.K. home base, including the U.S., Australia and Europe, where it is looking to grow. 

Buzz aside, the biggest benefit to the brands from this strange experiment has been that “it allowed all of us to capitalize on each other’s audiences and do something completely unique,” McEntee said. “There are consumers in the erectile dysfunction or cheese space who have never heard of Gymbox and were opened up to a new brand.” 

One question remains: From a marketing standpoint, how do you follow a cheese, cereal and Viagra collab? 

“We don’t rest on our laurels. We’re open to whatever we feel pushes the boundaries of creativity,” McEntee said. “Maybe we’ll do a six-brand collaboration next time.”