Winning with Content
Author: Chris Grubisa, President and CEO, Chrilleks
Chrilleks is a sport branding media agency. We make content better for every athletic brand and athlete so they can focus on what they do best: Winning. Chrilleks was co-founded by myself, Chris Grubisa, and Aleksandra Lason in 2011. The name Chrilleks originated from our names “Chri” for Chris and “lleks” for Aleks. Chrilleks currently operates from Canada in the Greater Toronto area and in Long Beach, California.
Finding our home in SoCal
When we first arrived in Los Angeles in 2016 our very first office was at the co-working space, WeWork, in the Gas Tower. We quickly ended up moving from Gas Tower to the WeWork in Culver City also known as Silicon Beach. It was an incredible fit and we truly enjoyed the area and talent, but it was time to move on from co-working and into our own space as the company began to grow. We found a space in Huntington Beach for 2 years, but kept missing the city element.
When we began exploring other options, Long Beach made sense, it’s the middle marker for LA County and Orange County, it has its own airport (a bonus for us who travel a ton!), and a downtown that reminded us of a Vancouver and Toronto hybrid - two places we hold close to our hearts. Not to mention how much easier it has been to grow our internal team; now receiving talent from both LA and the Orange County networks.
We’ve been operating out of Long Beach now for a year and absolutely love it. The city has been extremely supportive of our business from day one and offers numerous complimentary programs through the Downtown Long Beach Alliance, such as the P.A.C.E Program and educational workshops such as “How To Survive: Assembly Bill 5 and Independent Contractors”.
It’s the first time that Chrilleks has been so heavily involved with the city it’s growing in because the city itself makes it accessible, easy and valuable in many opportunities. From April 2019 to December 2019, we’ve tripled our business and we strongly believe that has a lot to do with our new home.
Our mission
Chrilleks’ mission is to uplift and share the amazing stories behind each athlete and brand to help amplify their message through unique creative executions.
Athletes are remarkable human beings who continuously put themselves on the line for the world to watch. Their ability to perform in movement is just as important as their mental capabilities when striving for gold. Performance and mental strength together, as well as the community around them, also matters.
Many factors have to align. The late night practices with coaching staff, families who sacrifice their schedules - we believe all those efforts compound over time for everyone to win that gold. The amount of work invested behind the medal fascinates us and we are here to share that. There is much more to it than game night. When the stage lights get turned on - that’s when you see who’s invested the true work.
We believe that our team at Chrilleks are athletes in our own way. Our team constantly thinks strategy; we practice daily and take action. The projects we work on are our game nights. Our support staff in legal, our accounting teams, our crews, and internal teams, allow us to perform to the best of our ability for all of us to win. It’s a unique way of operating, and the energy is just right.
We’re focusing our content expertise on major league sports from the NBA, NFL, MLB, and, of course, the NHL with our Canadian roots. Additionally, we’re expanding into other sports such as running, boxing, tennis, and racing.
Ryan Garcia and Gymshark
We are about shaking things up at Chrilleks. Our approach is different. A campaign video Chrilleks produced for Gymshark’s boxing athlete, Ryan Garcia, has 4.1 Million views on Instagram, and 400K views on YouTube. You can view the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_b6YHfQssA
The reason Gymshark x Ryan Garcia video performed with positive outreach has a lot to do with Ryan’s authentic influence. The title of the video is “The Fastest Hands in Boxing” and that couldn't be more true. His success on social media targeted a proper generation, Generation Z. He’s leveraged his social influence to promote his boxing career along with brand partnerships.
An environment uniquely captured also plays into the heavy hitting numbers. A lot of structured thinking is devoted to these powerhouse videos. This is the first time Ryan’s content was at the professional caliber. It made it very clear that Ryan is now in the professional league.
Sharing an athlete's story - it's personal
Athletes perform to the best of their ability in and around their game. Our team looks at that as motivation to perform at their level.
How athletes lead their personal life reflect how they perform and all of it accounts for their success. What happens off the court is just as special. Showcasing that side through content opens the opportunity to make a deeper impact.
The way people consume content has changed. Fans want to be related to, not be sold to. Having that backstory showcased in a proper way develops more core fans and allows fans to invest more into the player, team, and city. Their story resonates deeper. Working with athletes comes branding, on the personal side, as well as sponsorship.
Take for example Under Armour’s Jordan Speith. Jordan’s talents along with his personality provided the opportunity to merge athlete + brand making it a very unique experience. Fellow athletes can learn from this and implicate into their career. https://www.chrilleks.com/under-armour-golf
This is a great case study in that Jordan Speith, a 26 year old American professional golfer on the PGA Tour and former world number one in the Official World Golf Ranking, has a sponsor like Under Armour who supports him only through brand and athlete content but doesn’t support his personal channels.
Jordan Spieth barely uses his social media to leverage his own brand/personality. His popularity and growth is only based off his sponsors and his game performance. But what’s his game plan?
This is why Chrilleks is investing a ton of time to educate and work with athletes directly so they don’t fall short in places like social media. Right now, Jordan is allowing his sponsors to build him and his career outlook, but we want to know who Jordan Spieth is off the golf course. That Jordan is more valuable to any brand but more importantly, to his followers/supporters.
Since 2016, Chrilleks has been working with world-class brands. To name a few, RedBull, Gymshark, Under Armour, Canadian Tire, DC Shoes, and Mountain Dew. It’s been fascinating to watch how brands can indirectly share their message with their athlete, making a bigger splash.
Gymshark, a global fitness brand recognized our perspective in 2018. Since then Chrilleks has been building content for their athletes and expanding into campaigns and product releases impacting millions of fans on both the brand and athlete spectrum.
Working in Canada and the U.S.
Managing a business between Canada and the US has its challenges. Both markets are very different and we continue to do appropriate research to see if we can find a common ground.
Although the traction that we pick up in the US has become the perfect case study for our Canadian clients, it does seem however that in the last year the Canadian market has been picking up on trends much ahead of the US.
It’s a very unique experience when pivoting our company to sport. Toronto is well known for the NHL network and Los Angeles more on the basketball / lifestyle side. With the Toronto Raptors recent win in the championships the two worlds begin to blend. There are situations like that where we often see similarities. We hope that the pivot into sports content will blur these lines as sport is its own international language.
This is why MAPLE Business Council is the perfect community for an organization like us. MAPLE is a collective of our two best assets: Canada and USA, and more specifically Toronto and Los Angeles.
For more information on Chrilleks, please visit www.chrilleks.com.