I’ve been excited about the UA HOVR Fat Tire for a while, but I’ve always written about the missteps in marketing at Under Armour. When I sat down to do the unboxing for this shoe, I was excited about where Under Armour could be headed as a brand. When I received the shoes, I was even more intrigued because of how amazing the HOVR FT feels on foot and how it looks. I began looking at the marketing division for UA because it felt like the team missed the shot.
What I realized was Under Armour has a history of either allowing incredible marketing people to walk away from the brand, or they are suppressing the teams in place… especially the Black voices at the brand. I wrote a post a few years back explaining that as the youngest of the big brands, UA should have diversity built into it. It seems that UA has allowed itself to become a shadow of both Nike and adidas. Companies founded by White people who use diversity discussions to keep the share price high and to counter any attack on the brands. Diversity isn’t natural.
I’m not on the inside, but discussions from people on LinkedIn shed light on a problem and then as I looked at the Fat Tire and began to discover all of the marketing people who moved on to very good jobs at other companies, I got angry. I intercut my discussion on the problem at UA with an unboxing to bring levity to the situation, but I really need someone at a newspaper to take a deeper look into this than I have access to provide.
