Source: StephIQ
Alright, before you begin browsing and looking everywhere for C2UA, I made it up. I tend to do this with brands when I’m discussing something that the brand has failed to give a name to. Before Nike developed CDO (Consumer Direct Offense) I described it using the generic DTC title which began showing up everywhere until Investor’s Day.
Under Armour is undoubtedly in a difficult spot as they attempt to find ground in the US. While they have seen considerable growth abroad, the flat line of the brand continues in North America and that’s a problem. To offset these issues during the conference call for Q1 Kevin Plank said they need to be a better brand, not just a good brand. That means that product has to be strong enough to move people through the sales funnel and into purchasing the kicks and gear.
I’ve maintained that UA has great product, although they have taken a Nike styled approach to releasing too much product. Which moves us into a different discussion than what this post is about. The C2UA (Connected To Under Armour) Offense is my explanation of what the brand needs to do to grow their brand loyalty in North America.
StephIQ allows fans to, “Compete for prizes in STEPH IQ – the real-time trivia game show triggered by Stephen Curry. Unlocked and live every playoff game, the moment Stephen hits his first three-pointer.” This serves several purposes for the brand:
Marketing
Funnel
Narrative
The app requires you to be actively engaged in watching Steph on court. This is marketing. It places you within the app where the brand has your contact information and can update you on any item via the most effective marketing tool there is, e-mail. The StephIQ allows UA to build a narrative. Connected is a reappropriation of a word that has a negative connotation for the brand via Connected Fitness the department that I hold responsible for the slow down in UA’s momentum. The department was axed in 2017 and a number of people were laid off.
UA can reclaim the connected aspect, which still exists in the HOVR platform and find a way to engage the consumer where they are. This is a solid play for the basketball marketing department as they have done very little to promote Curry and UA Basketball although they had two of the best looking hoop performance shoes this season in the Drive 4 and Curry 4.
While StephIQ is a very small portion of what could generate interest, it is a solid move by the brand that should be backed up with more C2UA Offense moves. The first would be scaling back the number of shoes released to focus on one particular line for each athlete. In other words I would completely revamp the footwear lineup under each prominent athlete and influencer. Right now Men’s has 207 shoes, Women’s 107, Boy’s 88 and Girl’s 45. That’s 447 models. In the Men’s outlet (marked down shoes) there are 181 shoes, Women’s has 126 shoes, Boys 182 shoes, and Girl’s has 71 shoes.
Go back and read that again.
Three of the four categories has more shoes in the outlet than in the New Footwear categories. There could be some overlap, but still this is not a good thing. While I don’t work for the company, I did launch my own shoe company and I can tell you where my big mistake was. In 2012 I had a successful launch of my running shoe the CG097II. The shoe was selling and performing well and what I did is what most brands do, I thought I could introduce a new shoe when the reality was I only needed to spruce up the shoe that was working.
Under Armour has suffered from the overproduction of footwear. If the brand sat down and tooks it’s athlete roster, there are 44 of them listed on the site, (The site needs to be updated. https://www.underarmour.com/en-us/ua-roster) if UA took it’s athletic roster and actually broke down shoe styles under each athlete as: Performance, Training, Lifestyle this would allow the brand to decrease the production of so many shoes that don’t sell. This would give each athlete 3 possible footwear options. If 40 athletes are given teams then other UA sponsored athletes would be presented in marketing via each team. The players under each group could be strategically chosen according to location, etc and they could be given colors over the course of the year. That’s 40 x 3 for 120 pair of shoes with only colorways as the option. This diminishes the excess shoes being created and if the team marketing strategy is utilized you’re talking about an opportunity for intercompany rivals and marketing opportunities via UA TV on YouTube featuring athletic competitions featuring UA sponsored athletes. Think about Team Curry vs Team Spieth in a swimming competition or track and field competition. Team Curry wears the HOVR for Training and Team Spieth wears the Delta or SlingFlex. You get what I mean…
I know this is a lot to read when you only came to look at what StephIQ was, but hey this is what I do. Here is the link to the StephIQ app:
Source: StephIQ
Carry on 🙂
