Every time I attempt to leave Under Armour alone and not complain about something, I see details on why the brand isn’t recovering. This is a video from Kohl’s. It’s a fantastic video that introduces UA as a brand that Kohl’s will carry to help people become more active at that great Kohl’s pricepoint.
The video is perfectly shot and it utilizes a little girl who could be of Latina heritage which is reaching out to a very important demographic in the US. Women’s sportswear is continuing to grow and focusing on diversity while also giving parents a visual to introduce the brand is solid ad work.
The problem is Under Armour has provided no secondary work to help promote the brand at Kohl’s. I can’t repeat again and again that Under Armour’s marketing is very lackluster and at the most important times they have failed to create the connective tissue that drives engagement.
Kohl’s has also failed to understand social media and that a beautiful ad means nothing without a financial push. There aren’t anymore viral videos. All videos are pay to play. The video released on YouTube has less than 250 views and was published yesterday.
Kohl’s didn’t run a YouTube ad to promote the video. Under Armour hasn’t supported it with content creation on their website. Under Armour didn’t create any updates on their news site. What Kohl’s has done is bought into a relationship with a partner that has yet to understand what moves this generation’s consumer and it seems to be such a waste because Kohl’s isn’t a company that has had to do content creation and generate emotion. They are a discount store and by default that has driven the company. They are now an athletic apparel company in partnership with Under Armour who in my opinion is the worst big company at producing content and connection with their intended market. I don’t see this going very well. Beautiful video though Kohl’s, great job.
Here is a well written article discussing Kohl’s recent issues and goals with this partnership:
http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/kohl-s-hearts-armour/308119/
