Integrated: Under Armour–Rule Yourself
By Malay Desai From: New York, by Droga5 American sports clothing and accessories brand Under Armour has launched a new campaign featuring three of America’s top athletes – ballet dancer Misty Copeland, NBA’s most valuable player Steph Curry and golf champion Jordan Spieth. The film features the three people beginning to practice and train, and gradually goes on to show their clones forming an army behind and around them. The intercuts, set to a military-like ‘1-2-3-4’ soundtrack, eventually feature thousands of their clones, before they merge back into the original player. ‘You are the sum of all your training’, the copy reads. UA has taken this forward on digital media using the hashtag #RuleYourself. Do we like ? I have barely featured a Nike commercial in this space, mostly because you would see the outstanding ones going viral anyway and there haven’t really been any mediocre ones. Nike’s campaigns have long been a standard in footwear and accessory advertising, but here’s a competitor, for its US market for now, that’s begun a brand new fight. Under Armour is a brand you might not have heard of unless you follow American sports, so to put into perspective, it is about eight times smaller than Nike. In a campaign that marks the classic fight of the underdog, the ‘Rule Yourself’ project is one of its biggest yet. In many ways, it has chosen to feature underdogs too – its brand ambassadors being young stars who have recently risen to fame. Or in cricket terms, the Ajinkya Rahanes. We get the hint that the film is essentially meant for an American audience when we see an NBA star, the principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre and a golfer taking centre stage. The three, having been in the news for their dogged performances, make for gritty faces of the campaign, which is a step up from just the ballerina who featured in UA’s ad last. The film and campaign try hard to break the ‘wannabe Nike’ mould, put forth a new thought of ‘training’ and ‘practice’ as opposed to the market leader’s ideas of winning and excellence. We are not talking of Tiger Woods and Michael Jordans any more, we are talking of athletes who still have a decade or so of a fight in them, and are currently relentless in training. The clone CG treatment and sound design add much value before a simple concept builds up and explodes – that every athlete is the sum of his or her hours of training. Training apparel, obviously, makes up for over half of the brand’s total business. Coupled with an aggressive digital campaign is a roadshow that’s winding up in Japan as you read this, and the brand may well look at ROI with a bang. To compete with champions, after all, it takes tons of training. Well played, UA. (To watch this film,feed this link in your browser - bit.ly/ViewTubeSep7) SOCIAL NEWSFEED YOUR REGULAR DOSE ON THE SHIFTS IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA UNIVERSE Twitter ads leap for chhota businesses In case you are using the Twitter app for Android and have been spotting numerous ‘promoted’ tweets about neighbourhood businesses, here’s what’s happening: Some time in 2013, Twitter.inc decided that small and medium businesses (SMBs) would be a big bet for garnering advertising. It gradually rolled out new features and kept launching in several markets across the world. Last week, we read on its official blog that it is now active in 200 countries around the world, and with features such as website cards, event targeting and real-time result tracking. Well played Twitter, and one more thing – at the cost of my timeline being spammed, I am quite liking to know of some totally new start-ups. I swear there’s an app for your dhobi service now. Look it up! TVF Pitchers like this Maggi’s comeback game on social It was panned across media, including this column, when it remained silent when its brand’s pyres were burning, but it would be safe to assume Maggi has learnt hard lessons and initiated the right moves on social for its comeback game. The campaign’s called #WeMissYouToo, and it doesn’t feature any clean-up brand ambassadors – because let me guess – no biggie wants to now risk putting their face on it? Anyway, me thinks the campaign is quite similar to the time IPL had to shift to South Africa and then returned the next year, with the cricketers going ‘We also missed you.’ As for buzz, there has been tons of good feedback on this one, and Nestle will hope that the past few months are quickly forgotten. Baba Ramdev likes this Twitter India reaches new places to push Periscope I had told you last month how Twitter India has been working overtime and quite cleverly to push their new live streaming app, Periscope, with Pro kabaddi teams. Not too much of a surprise now that I see the efforts have reached media houses too. Among the early adopters have been the TV Today group, who recently ‘Periscoped’ a political interview. Digital news platform Quint too has been creating live-stream events on and off. Interestingly, Ten Sports, the Dubai based telecaster, has been toying with contests and once even broadcast the second half of a football match. I won’t be impressed, Twitter, until you get Bolly stars to Periscope some insider goss. Deepika Padukone likes this
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