Under Armor (UA) - Stepping up the Social Media Game

I wanted to highlight one of my favorite ad campaigns I thought was really effective.  I'm going to highlight UA  that competes in the highly competitive sports apparall space. My favorite part about this campaign is how far it has evolved over time. The first few videos they launched were very basic, but as time progressed, they continued to improve their story telling and ended up getting its users engaged.

Under Armor "Rule Yourself "Campaign

9 Months ago they first launched commercials staring: Misty Copeland, Jordan Spieth, Steph Curry, and  Tom Brady. The message all the commercials were telling you that "you are the sum of your training..... Rule Yourself".

The commercial currently has over 2.4MM Views. The commercial was a very basic but cool concept, they showed each athlete practicing their particular sport, with hundreds of clones or past versions of themselves training going through the same motions. This was symbolizing the number of times they have worked on something to get it right, and when you see all of those times practicing being played at once, you have a far greater appreciation for the time these atheletes put into their sport.

The brand then ended up taking this a step further and examined what goes into a day/week of practice, because a lot of people just see the end result, and don't realize what goes into getting there. Three months ago they launched 3 new videos starting the US Womens Gymnastics team, Memphis Depay, and Michael Phelps. These videos had a slightly different quote at the end; "It's what you do in the dark, that will put you in the light... Rule Yourself". With the summer olympics coming up, I think that these were great choices and think they were all remarkably well done. Take a look:

 

 

 

5.3MM Views

 

 

2.8MM Views

 

 

219K Views

I thought they were all great, and after seeing them all I was wondering who Memphis Depay was. Apparently he was named "Best Young Player" in the world in 2015 by France Football. He is 22 years old, plays wing for the English Club Manchester United. He has also been dubbed the "New Ronaldo" because of their very similar styles of play. Something tells me, we'll be seeing and hearing a lot more of him in the years to come.

Looking at the numbers, UA was able to produce ~4X the views in 1/3 of the time with these new videos. I hope UA keeps building on this, and continues to generate more content like this. The only problem I think they have now is that they have set the bar extremely high.

Then when you look at the #RuleYourself on Twitter, there is all sorts of good stuff being posted by its users including:

Someone going 18 under par

People cutting weight:

Buying swag:

The campaign motivated people to work hard, share content and buy swag.... I think its working and can't wait to see what they come out with next.