Would you get a tattoo of a company logo?

Chuck Runyon, the founder and boss of US gym chain Anytime Fitness, says he is very proud of the fact that more than 2,000 people around the world now have his firm's logo of a running man tattooed on their bodies.

The phenomenon started in 2004 when a company manager was the first to get the tattoo for a dare, but customers soon followed suit.

Today a constant stream of the gym's members continue to get the tattoo, and the business promises to reimburse everyone who sends in a photograph with an explanation as to why they 

Typically this costs the company about $100 (£58) per person, but Mr Runyon, 45, says the financial incentive has nothing to do with why people get their body art.

"Hundreds and hundreds of people have told us why they got the tattoo, and it has never been about the money or the brand," he says.

"Instead the answers are always very, very personal. Many say they got the tattoo to mark the fact they had achieved something they never thought was possible, such as losing a considerable amount of weight, or feeling healthy."

Mr Runyon often gives the example of Susan Bock, a customer from Colorado. Anytime Fitness helped her lose 150 pounds (68kg).

Ms Bock, in her early 50s, says the firm gave her "her life back", and she got the tattoo to celebrate, according to Mr Runyon.

Brand commitment

 

But as a company, does encouraging customers to get a tattoo of your logo affect the strength or value of your brand?

Independent brand consultant Rebecca Battman says it is a smart move.

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"It is absolutely positive for any business if people feel such a strong affinity with its brand that they will indelibly mark their bodies - that is a pretty high level of commitment," she says.

"It demonstrates a real emotional commitment to a brand, and shows how much brands have come into different aspects of our lives - they are no longer just about a product or experience.

"And people now often feel strongly that they share the same fundamental beliefs or attitudes of a certain company."

Fellow brand expert Robert Jones, professor of branding at the University of East Anglia, agrees, saying that there is little risk to a firm's reputation if people start getting its logo tattooed, "because tattoos have changed from being something subculture to something mainstream and, within reason, respectable".

Prof Jones adds that companies instead get customers who are prepared to be free promoters of the brand, and that it helps firms to build a community around themselves.

'Stands for something'

Mr Runyon, who himself has a tattoo of the company logo, says that creating a strong affinity with its gym goers was a key aim of Anytime Fitness ever since he founded the business in Minnesota in 2002.

A veteran of the gym industry in the US, he explains that instead of focusing on impossible to achieve images of body perfection, he wanted to remove this intimidation.

So staff are reminded that most customers do not enjoy exercise, and should instead be more gently encouraged and supported to reach achievable goals.