A group of women– and Under Armour brand ambassadors– just got back from UA Camp Sweat at the IMG Academy in Clearwater, Florida. They won the trip through Under Armour Women’s latest What’s Beautiful? contest. Here’s a video explaining the campaign (take the time to watch, or you’ll get lost with this post):
For anyone interested in social media and digital, their campaign is worth noting. Below are thoughts on Under Armour’s wins throughout the What’s Beautiful campaign, and also, a few lessons learned:
Campaign Wins
1. The Point of Entry is Clear and Defined
Users need to be extremely engaged to win and get noticed in UA’s What’s Beautiful contest, but that’s okay, because the point of entry is extremely clear and defined:
- Step One- Declare a goal.
- Step Two- Complete challenges.
- Step Three- Win UA glory.
When anything is too complicated in social, users are going to turn away, no matter how awesome the prize, end result, etc. Anytime a brand launches a robust campaign, it needs to be dumbed down as much as possible. Under Armour not only walks the user through the steps when they sign up for the challenge, but the video above also lays it out for the user in a clear, concise and visual way. Between the two, there shouldn’t be any questions.
2. Microsite Behind the Campaign is Top-Notch
This is just my personal opinion, but I love the design, layout and functionality of the What’s Beautiful microsite. It makes me want to stay, join and engage. Not only that, but it’s extremely easy to sign up and start getting involved. Come on, check it out here.
3. Social Sharing is Everywhere
I went through the steps to sign-up for the What’s Beautiful community and everywhere along the way there was an opportunity to share socially. When you launch a big digital / social media campaign, you want social sharing to be easy. Why:
- Will attract more entrants / users.
- Builds brand ambassadors.
- Gets people talking about your brand, and, word of mouth reigns.
Here’s just one glimpse of social sharing during the sign-up process alone (please disregard my goal, it is just for demonstration purposes):
4. Community is Priority
This campaign extends beyond contests– it’s about building a community of women who are passionate about fitness and the UA brand. The microsite gives people the opportunity to tell their story, upload photos and encourage each other.
Take a look at the picture below; from this one post you can follow the athlete, post a comment to encourage or give a “woot”. Like I said, they’re building a community.
In fact, just because the lastest competition has ended, does not mean the microsite is shut down. You can still sign up to be apart of the community and complete challenges. UA says it best:
But everyone remember, this is bigger than a competition. This is a community. This is a journey. This is mission. Every day you sweat, you show the world What’s Beautiful. So get ready. There’s always more to come.
5. Builds Brand Ambassadors
What’s Beautiful is setup to build brand ambassadors. Everyday people are posting great content in their UA apparel; their blogging about their experience; they are sharing their journey on Facebook and Twitter. And, for those who are really rockin’ the content, they get a chance to be official UA ambassadors (pretty cool).
Under Armour capitalized on the content their brand ambassadors generated during the recent UA Sweat Camp. See below and check out the page here:
6. Rewards
People love free stuff. Period. No matter what, it’s always good to reward your fans and brand amabssadors.
While I think Under Armour rocked this campaign, I think there are still a few things they can do better. Below are three lessons learned from UA’s What’s Beautiful.
Lessons Learned
1. Too Many Messages
#IWILL, #campsweat, #whatsbeautiful… as a community member, I would have no idea which hashtag or phrase Under Armour would prefer I use.
With any kind of social media campaign, I believe brands need to pick one key hashtag and stick with it. Using one key hashtag helps streamline and conversation, and, it doesn’t confuse people (too many choices, especially with the character limit on Twitter, is never a good thing).
2. Doesn’t Make the Most of User-Generated Content
The whole premise behind the microsite / community is to upload photos, videos, etc. as you complete challenges, workouts, etc. With that said, UA is sitting on a gold mine of content to distribute on their social channels (assuming Under Armour has had a decent amount of traction from this campaign). While they have used the content to post a picture on Facebook here and there or create a video montage, I don’t think the content has been utilized enough. If I were them, I would use any of the good content, brand it and blow it out of the water.
Under Armour brand ambassadors are not just the “official” ones who win their contests– it’s every woman in the community and anyone who tweets, posts and shares a positive message about their brand. They need to capitalize on all of it.
3. Takes Work to Expand Audience
I don’t have access to UA’s stats to know how many users they have on their microsite, the number of uploads, comments, etc., but I can see the number of video views on YouTube. And from what I can see, the numbers are not that impressive for a big brand campaign. Under their “What’s Beautiful” playlist on YouTube, the video with the most views has 200,000+, followed by a video with 133,000+.
The truth is, it takes work to expand an audience, especially when UA appeals to a very specific niche within the sports apparel industry (they are a little more hardcore than the likes of Nike, adidas, etc). A glance at the profiles of users in the community shows they appeal to CrossFitters, hardcore yogis, extreme athletes and women who love strength training. Because they appeal to a niche, I think they could really benefit from grassroots marketing.
I don’t know if they have brand ambassadors within communities, but if they don’t, I think it’s time they use people in their target markets to build relationships with gyms, CrossFitters, hardcore yogis, gym rats, etc. This type of model is big in the running industry. Lulumon does it. I’m sure others do too.
Either way, it’s time to for them to take a hardcore look at how they can expand their audience for UA Women so more people can reap the benefits of their awesome brand.
So, what do you think of Under Armour’s “What’s Beautiful” campaign?
Hey Jessica I really like the points you highlight in terms of the wins and lessons learned. I’m 100% in agreement about UA’s is targeting a limited “niche” audience. I worked on a projected my final semester of college where my group took a deep dive into how to improve the sales for their women’s line. What we found during our research was that most girls were intimidated by the brand relating it to big muscular football players and intense athletes that were prevalent in UA’s brand image. Under Armour is right on in regards to suggesting that beauty appears in a lot of ways and is not limited to traditional looks, but their hyper focus on the “crossfit” crowd is too limited. Woman’a athletic apparel is a $30 billion market because woman across the board want to feel good and look good by living a healthy lifestyle and working out. So the challenge for us was how can we reposition UA’s brand in a way that maintains core value of high performance clothing but makes it more appealing to the woman who spends her gym time in spinning, or doing yoga, or on the treadmill. We opted for a sub brand called Athena and actually creating something both strong by clearly feminine. We got an A but sadly never heard anything back from UA.