Synovus Gym Rats Puts a Tampa Boxing Gym Before the Brand
Synovus's "Gym Rats" is a 60-second public service announcement, created by Fitzgerald+CO and released in January 2017, that places Hurricane Boxing Gym in Tampa Bay at the centre of the film while deliberately keeping the bank's own name off screen, embodying its "bank of here" positioning through radical community deference rather than conventional financial advertising.
Synovus Bank launches the campaign as a direct extension of its long-running "Bank of Here" marketing platform, first established in 2014. The objective is not product promotion in any traditional sense. Instead, the PSA exists to raise awareness in the Tampa Bay community for Hurricane Boxing Gym, a local non-profit that works with at-risk youth, and to signal Synovus's commitment to the neighbourhoods it serves. The bank's name appears nowhere in the creative itself, an unusually self-effacing stance for a financial institution operating in a sector where brand visibility is typically treated as a primary advertising objective.
The campaign distributes across local network television affiliates in the Tampa Bay area and through online channels, beginning its broadcast run in late January 2017 and planned to air for a full year. Synovus and Hurricane Boxing Gym jointly launched the PSA with a public viewing party and ribbon-cutting ceremony on 17 February 2017. The connection between the two organisations predates the campaign: Synovus first encountered Hurricane Boxing in 2015 through a retail promotion in which new checking account customers received two hundred dollars to reinvest in their communities and small businesses. Hurricane Boxing Gym was among those recipients, and the relationship developed into what both the Synovus and Fitzgerald+CO teams have described as a passion project. The Clapboard Score for "Gym Rats" is 66 out of 100.
Synovus positions its entire "Bank of Here" platform on a single premise: that a regional bank's competitive advantage lies not in its products but in its proximity to the people and organisations that define a local community. "Gym Rats" takes that premise to its logical extreme by producing a piece of content that functions as a charitable awareness film first and a bank advertisement second — or arguably not at all in the conventional sense.
The strategic rationale draws directly from the bank's history with the "Bank of Here" platform, which launched in 2014 and has consistently differentiated Synovus from larger national competitors through a focus on place and community belonging. Per fitzco.com, the 2014 campaign included the spot "Rebel Teen," which won two Gold Midas Awards for traditional banking and best use of television, and the print campaign "We're Reading This Too," which won a Silver Midas Award. "Gym Rats" continues that lineage rather than reinventing it, deepening the brand's association with community investment by selecting a subject — a boxing gym serving at-risk youth — that carries genuine social weight in the Tampa Bay area.
The regional banking landscape in which Synovus operates is intensely competitive, with large national institutions commanding significant asset bases. Per relbanks.com, the world's largest bank by assets in 2017 was ICBC. In this environment, regional banks such as Synovus differentiate through relationship depth and local credibility rather than scale, making a campaign like "Gym Rats" a strategically coherent choice even when it forgoes direct brand identification. The decision to withhold the Synovus name from the film itself is a calculated trust signal, inviting audiences to discover the bank's involvement rather than announcing it.
Director Jordan Bahat shoots the film for production company Caviar, with Director of Photography Michael Gioulakis behind the camera. The sixty-second PSA is built around intimate, observational glimpses of young members training at Hurricane Boxing Gym under the guidance of gym owner Will Velez, creating a visual language closer to documentary portraiture than conventional advertising.
On screen, the film opens on young gym members as they move through training drills in the ring and around the gym floor. The emotional centre is a first-person monologue delivered by one of the members, who reflects on the label "gym rats" — the name outsiders use for those who live in the gym. "Gym rats — that's what they call us. At first I didn't like it," the speaker says, before arriving at a redefining conclusion: "Rats survive; they take care of their own. I'm cool with being a gym rat." The film closes with the line "This ring builds champions," a tagline that applies equally to the sport and to the lives being shaped inside Hurricane Boxing Gym.
The creative team at Fitzgerald+CO is led by Chief Creative Officer Noel Cottrell, with Executive Creative Directors Mitch Bennett and Wes Whitener overseeing the work. Art direction is handled by Erin Fillingim and the copy is written by Matt Shoemake. Executive Director of Integrated Production Christine Sigety manages the production pipeline, with Executive Producer Darren Foldes, Line Producer Michael Sarkissian, and Editorial Producer Terry Huynh completing the core production team. Editorial and post-production are handled by Caviar. The result is a piece that deliberately suppresses the aesthetic conventions of financial advertising — no interest rates, no product features, no bank interiors — in favour of a texture that earns credibility through restraint.
No verified performance data for "Gym Rats" is publicly available. No published figures have been located for sales lift, new account openings, deposit growth, market-share change, or brand-awareness movement attributable to the campaign. No quantified outcomes for Hurricane Boxing Gym's awareness or participation gains following the PSA have been reported. No verified media budget or production spend data has been identified.
The campaign has also not been confirmed as a winner or nominee at Cannes Lions, the Effies, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or the WARC Awards, and Synovus's published honors page does not record a "Gym Rats" award result.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness argument rests on two mechanisms. First, the deliberate absence of the Synovus name from the film creates a discovery dynamic: audiences who connect with the PSA and investigate its origins encounter the bank through curiosity rather than interruption, a form of earned attention that is difficult to manufacture. Second, the year-long local television run on Tampa Bay network affiliates — combined with the public launch event on 17 February 2017 — concentrates the campaign's impressions precisely where Synovus's commercial relationships are most valuable, in the communities the bank physically serves. These structural choices align tightly with the "Bank of Here" platform's core logic, even in the absence of reported quantitative outcomes.
"Gym Rats" is a 60-second PSA Synovus released in January 2017, created by Fitzgerald+CO. It profiles Hurricane Boxing Gym in Tampa Bay and its work with at-risk youth. Notably, the Synovus brand name does not appear anywhere in the film itself, expressing the bank's "Bank of Here" community-first positioning.
Jordan Bahat directed "Gym Rats" for Synovus through production company Caviar. Director of Photography Michael Gioulakis shot the film. The creative team at Fitzgerald+CO was led by Chief Creative Officer Noel Cottrell, with Executive Creative Directors Mitch Bennett and Wes Whitener overseeing the project alongside art director Erin Fillingim and copywriter Matt Shoemake.
Hurricane Boxing Gym is a non-profit organisation in Tampa Bay that works with at-risk youth through boxing training. Synovus first connected with Hurricane Boxing in 2015 through a retail promotion awarding new checking account customers two hundred dollars to reinvest locally. The relationship became a passion project that led directly to the 2017 PSA.
"Gym Rats" began airing in late January 2017 on local network television affiliates in the Tampa Bay area and through online channels. It was planned to run for a full year. Synovus and Hurricane Boxing Gym held a joint public viewing party and ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the official launch on 17 February 2017.
No verified award wins or nominations for "Gym Rats" have been confirmed across Cannes Lions, the Effies, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or the WARC Awards. Synovus's published honors page does not record an award result for the campaign, though its predecessor "Rebel Teen" won two Gold Midas Awards in 2014, per fitzco.com.
"Gym Rats" is a direct continuation of the "Bank of Here" platform Synovus launched in 2014, as documented on fitzco.com. That platform positions the bank around local presence and community investment rather than product features. "Gym Rats" extends the approach by producing content that centres an independent community organisation rather than the bank itself.
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