Under Armor is a company that had started with a a very specific product, that would replace the typical fabric that were worn underneath Football pads, to a much more breathable, and practical fabric. From there Under Armor became one of the largest competing fitness apparel brand’s to date beating out Adidas for number two athletic brand after launching their ad campaign, “I Will What I Want”. This campaign was targeted toward expanding Under Armor into the female market. Beginning with a specific product, the fabric worn underneath football pads, demonstrates an example of niche segmentation.
“By 2013, Under Armor had expanded to shorts, shoes, and even hats, and was already a success within the men’s athletic-wear market”. (Under Armor’s Willful Digital Moves). Now that they had a standing market in the men’s athletic market, they wanted to expand their possible sales into a women’s based line. They utilized social media, YouTube, to advertise their new female focused line. Their ad was released shortly after Adidas published their YouTube and it only received 400K views on YouTube, where Under Armor went with a celebrity sponsor to target and got 4 million views.
They utilized celebrity sponsorship to promote different active sports to develop a campaign clearly around women’s physique as well as celebrate women’s mental strength and determination. Celebrities such as Misty Copeland, and Gisele Bündchen signed with the Under Armor brand Brand. These celebrities were specifically chosen to advocate for a nontraditional celebrity endorser, and it assisted greatly in boosting the brand.
It is important to find a definite market segment to target in running ad campaigns. “Smaller segments can actually be more profit- able when there is less competition.” (Cardes, Frank, Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy). Having a large range of products can make the chance of successful competition much more challenging to compete with, this is called marketing aggression. They also use differentiated marketing to appeal to various types of consumers, directing specific products depending on the consumer’s needs and lifestyle.
I definitely would like to see more active-lounge wear which has become much more popular to wear for day-to-day. Expanding on this market with clothing that is designed for people to be comfortable but also trendy when they are out and about.
https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/lti/links/content-launch
Cardes, Frank, Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy. pg 43-45.
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