Under Armour 'Under The Armour'

Integrated Brand Campaign

AGENCY: 160OVER90

CREATIVE DIRECTOR + COPYWRITER

TRAIN WHAT'S UNDER THE ARMOUR

When Under Armour asked us to evolve their brand mission to fit the changing world in a way that spoke to young performers struggling during the pandemic, we developed a creative platform and global marketing initiative that put more of the focus on the "human" in Under Armour's positioning as the "human performance company," and extended their mission into new territory.

We developed Under Armour's 2021 brand campaign to take athletes "Under The Armour," in the first campaign by a major sports brand targeting athletes' mental health and mental strength - in which we empowered athletes of all levels with the elite tools to train their minds like the world’s best.

The story came to life across broadcast film, social content, retail and in-store placements, radio and streaming audio, digital advertising, and an online mental strength training hub.

We leveraged UA's sponsored athletes to lend credibility to our campaign across all media and drive users to the Performance Academy.

TV LAUNCH SPOTS

We introduced our platform with films featuring real athletes touting the importance of mental strength and teaching viewers some of their training techniques and exercises - while showing vulnerability beneath their tough exteriors, and sharing how they keep their minds right under pressure.

:30 TVC "Imposter Syndrome" starring Bella Alarie for Under Armour

:30 TVC, "The Moment" starring Anthony Joshua for Under Armour

:30 TVC, "Gold vs. Goals" starring Michael Phelps for Under Armour

THE UA PERFORMANCE ACADEMY

Young athletes deserved a way to train their minds like the pros - but had no access to the same kind of training. So we created the UA Performance Academ y from scratch – a massive curriculum of mental strength exercises, training knowledge and tools backed by science (thanks, Dr. Michael Gervais) - and made it accessible for free, for all.

Click here to try a visualization exercise for yourself!

Our advertising didn't just establish our POV on mental strength. Everything we produced led to a robust online hub full of mental strength education and tools that backed up our promise with real utility.

Developed in partnership with a leading sports psychologist, we built a website and produced hours of original animated, audio and written content, challenges, meditations and breathing exercises.

These exercises were proven to help athletes both train their minds for peak performance - and find their inner resilience through times of uncertainty and doubt.

DIGITAL, OUT OF HOME & RETAIL

We backed it up by spreading the word about the importance of mental strength in retail, outdoor digital placements across the globe - with ads that made you better as you read them.

Embodying the brand's mission to "make you better," we made sure even UA's marketing made you better, incorporating some of our custom mental strength training exercises right into our ads, allowing people to train their minds on the spot.

Users could learn mental strength techniques directly from their favorite athletes by following our ads to that athlete's section of the UA Performance Academy.

PRINT
We told the stories of individual Under Armour athletes throughout our campaign, showing that each athlete has found success by training what's "Under the Armour."

We visually explored the idea of overcoming any obstacle "Through The Mind" by layering images, color, text, and transparency.

Because Under Armour's mantra is "The Only Way Is Through," we extended that brand ethos with the line "Through The Mind."

CONTENT EXTENSIONS

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