Rumble Boxing CMO on Building Brand Awareness at Scale
A former D1 athlete turned marketing exec, Rachelle Dejean has helped Rumble establish itself as one of the coolest brands in fitness
Rachelle Dejean helped build Club Pilates into one of the world’s biggest fitness brands. She’s now in the midst of doing the same for Rumble Boxing, an Xponential Fitness-owned brand whose workouts combine bouts of boxing and strength training, all set to energetic music and dynamic lighting.
The chief marketing officer of Rumble, Dejean has helped the brand scale from just a handful of locations to over 100 globally in a few short years, driving the popularity of boxing workouts, particularly among women, who make up the majority of Rumble’s membership base.
She’s also turned Rumble into one of the coolest brands in fitness. In recent years, the brand has hosted activations like a ‘90s-themed block party and collaborated with artists including Tinashe.
Dejean sat down with Athletech News to discuss how she’s building brand awareness for Rumble, why boxing workouts are becoming more popular with women and how she approaches marketing as one of the few Black, female C-Suite executives in the fitness industry.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Athletech News: Can you tell us about your background and how you got your start in fitness?
Rachelle Dejean: I was a student-athlete growing up so I’ve always had a foot in fitness. After I graduated playing two D-1 sports, I found myself in marketing in the architecture/engineering/construction industry. I spent five years there building my career and really honing in on brand positioning, since engineering is so niche.
Organically, I made my way back into fitness. I was introduced to Club Pilates by my old boss, Jessica Yarmey, who was the CMO at Club Pilates when I joined. She and I met when she was with Gold’s Gym and I was doing a fitness event. I was blessed to move up the ladder at Club Pilates; I decided to move over to Rumble because I was looking for that next step up.
ATN: What was your time like at Club Pilates, and what learnings have you brought over to Rumble?
RD: When I first joined Club Pilates, there were about 300 locations; now there’s over 1,000. I was a big part of scaling the brand. There’s a lot to protect when it comes to brand integrity, especially in a franchise model, so one big thing I took away is the importance of process and structure, and being able to scale that. We have to make sure that the brand feels the same whether you’re walking into a studio in Evansville, Indiana, or New York City.
Looking at our current Rumble footprint with around 100 locations open in the U.S. and internationally, me and my fellow department heads have looked to implement that process and structure.
The other thing I learned was the importance of staying nimble. When I was at Club Pilates, the pandemic happened, and we had to be as nimble as you could imagine. Pilates reformers are huge machines, but we were able to adapt quickly and support our franchisee partners. We did online classes, and we even had outdoor workouts where studios literally would bring reformers to their parking lot to host classes.
ATN: What’s your strategy for driving awareness for Rumble – and boxing fitness in general?
RD: Our biggest brand challenge is helping people understand that boxing can be accessible. That’s at the center of our campaigns and awareness targets. But it’s also important for us to make people understand that boxing is just 50% of the Rumble experience. In all of our marketing initiatives and strategies, we need to make sure that the strength training aspect is understood. Making sure our customers know who we are and what we do is pivotal. We have local, paid and owned efforts that are focused on the education piece. We also have our national campaign and brand–level efforts where we can have some fun by playing into current events and entertainment culture to bring the brand to life.
ATN: Has boxing become more popular among fitness consumers since the pandemic?
RD: Particularly among women, there’s been a lot of increased interest over the past few years about why boxing is good for you, not just from a mental standpoint but from a self-defense standpoint. Our membership base skews more female than it does male. Maybe you have no plans to step into a ring, but knowing that you can prioritize your mental health and your confidence has been a big part of why people are turning to boxing. We’re unique in that we pair boxing with strength training, so it’s a head-to-toe workout.
ATN: What’s your experience been like as one of the relatively few Black, female executives in fitness, and what advice do you have for brands looking to implement a DEI strategy?
RD: It’s my seventh year here at Xponential Fitness. Just me being in this seat now is important because it helps add to the conversation where people weren’t normally thinking about diversity and inclusion.
We talked about the pandemic earlier. There was a big wave of focus on DEI in the midst of the pandemic, for many reasons. It was almost trendy then – if your brand wasn’t speaking up about diversity, people were calling you out for it. But it wasn’t so authentic. I’d love to see more brands simply look at their audience – their members and employees – and find ways to reflect them.
What I love about Rumble is that we’re rooted in hip-hop culture, entertainment and Black icons, so naturally that gives us a space to share our brand ethos. I see that diversity in our membership base, so when we’re ideating campaigns, I just need to look back to our members. We try to contribute to a diverse conversation and make sure our members know that no matter what your background or experience is, you have a space here.
ATN: What are your key strategic goals for Rumble over the next few years?
RD: The first is to continue to scale and build brand awareness. That structure and process that I’ve taken from my previous experience here at Xponential is paramount. We want to continue to scale the brand but not water down that Rumble Boxing experience that’s true to our core: high-energy, entertaining and authentic.
Personally, I’m eyeing a few brand milestones, including growing our studio count and continuing to unlock big partnerships. We’re working with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for the third year in a row. That’s not just about partnering with a great organization that’s at the forefront of Parkinson’s disease funding. It’s also about making sure people understand that boxing can help you with so many things.
We also recently launched a collab with artist Tinashe: merging our results-driven experience with music is so big for our brand. We’re always excited to do different initiatives like these to make the member experience as deep as it can be while staying true to our brand culture.