Joey Swoll talks about the fast rise of Shredz… and the scandalous downfall that followed.
Joey Swoll is a bodybuilder and entrepreneur who was a partner and part of the creation of Shredz, a supplement company that exploded onto the scene. In just one year, it went from nothing into massive company paying out six figure salaries – all through social media marketing. But just as quickly as Shredz rose to success, it feel apart due to various scandals and sudden negative press. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Joey Swoll reflects on his involvement with Shredz, what really happened with the reported scandals, and why he left the company.
Right when Shredz was a the top of the supplement world, its reputation came crashing down. Reports of sponsored athletes photoshopping physiques and claiming they were results from offered workout programs started flooding the web. Further reports stated that the workout programs themselves were simply cookie cutter routines, that athletes were using bots to pretend they were chatting one on one with clients, and that Shredz was running fake social media competitions that never picked winners.
During all of this negative press, Joey Swoll left the company and has since gone on to other successes including his recent launch of low calorie sauces for bodybuilders. During our sit down interview with Swoll, we asked him to reflect on his entire time working at Shredz and explain just what was happening with the scandals being reported.
Ultimately, as Joey Swoll puts it, the reason for Shredz success was the exact same reason for its downfall. Shredz used social media and sponsored influencers to build a marketing campaign outside of traditional channels. But this also led to a bunch of young athletes getting sponsored and essentially becoming rich overnight. Swoll thinks that’s a huge part of the reason that certain athletes got caught up in the scandal.
But Joey Swoll also makes a point to say that he doesn’t find much of what happened with Shredz much of a scandal at all. He thinks that certain athletes made huge mistakes – but that wasn’t condoned by the company and was handled once the information became known. Swoll stands by the main foundation of the company – which were high quality supplements.
You can checkout Joey Swoll’s full reflection on his time at Shredz and the various scandals by watching our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!
