Sarunas for most of us plays Dro getting it in on HBO’s Insecure as the man in the “open” relationship. Under Armour has pegged the 6-8 actor/writer as the host of their latest online show, Home Court. Sarunas played ball at Portland State so the discussion of hoops and lifestyle is a natural fit. The first episode is below, but that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about Under Armour accepting their role in footwear as a performance brand. While kids aren’t really rocking basketball shoes, the brand does have considerable interest. In my daily visits to the mall I finally had a chance to pick up the Curry 5 at Finish Line. The shoes aren’t being released in many wholesale locations which is frustrating for fans of Curry. What was most surprising is the amount of kids who walked into both House of Hoops and Finish Line asking about the Curry 5 for back to school.
What was also evident is that the amount of Vans being carried by Black kids is a clear indication of why Vans is performing so well. I’ve talked about this on social, but it doesn’t have anything to do with this post… it’s just an observation that I was already keenly aware of, ijs.
Under Armour has created several video campaigns in the last year. These shows serve as marketing for the brand and if the viewership on Home Court is any indication, it’s working. The series only has 4 installments, but in the midst of watching those I checked the UA Basketball YouTube station to see exactly how many Curry 5 spots had been created. This was important for me because the interest in Under Armour waned as the brand focused on tech and failed to market the Curry Line. I discussed this in the article below:
Under Armour Didn’t Make 1 Video To Market The Curry 4 | Marketing
The above post is one of many on the ‘lack of content’ topic. With Home Court, UA is working on fixing an obvious problem for the brand, content. This is what is really interesting, the Curry 5 in less than 3 months has 5 videos. Granted the videos are part of the same campaign and they have less than 10,000 views combined, it’s a start and it’s already more than the Curry 3-4 had over the last three years. The series Home Court has taken over for a more organic video campaign. The show plans to move from city to city to look at grassroots and streetball. This series in its short run has already garnered more views than the “influencer” based Shoot Your Shot YouTube series, which I thought was okay originally, but began to feel cheesy the moment the influencers selected began taking money from other shoe companies (which was the second episode):
Why Brands Have To Create Their Own Content In This Influencer Marketing Environment
Home Court is working for UA because having an ex athlete actually visit cities to look at basketball and lifestyle is a lot more genuine than inviting influencers to shoot hoops and answer cheesy questions. I still find it odd that these companies still haven’t understood of creating a library of content on their own sites. YouTube and social media are great, but they create another click needed to convert. Yesterday I had the president of a prominent sneaker company tell me that, “blogs are low traffic areas,” to explain why the brand wasn’t aggregating its content on its own site in a blog. Instead of extending this post I will share what I wrote to the president of that company and close out this one:
YouTube is by far the best social tool (imo) for one reason, Google indexes their videos for search. So I hear you, but…the blog is the only longform content indexed by search engines. You are becoming the brand of entrepreneurs. One of the ways entrepreneurs connect is via blogging. Set the standard & utilize it in the right way & the blog becomes one of the strongest community building tools in your entrepreneurial toolbox. More important it allows those videos to exist in more than one location. While people love building via social, social has to convert. Social has the problem of constantly evolving algorithms where you have to pay to play. Once visitors to YouTube understand that video content and other written content is available on your platform they have one less click to make to get to the kicks. Social is great, but search & direct traffic drive engagement on sites & the information there is available for as long as the domain exists. While many people on YouTube don’t use the links in the description this video doesn’t have anything directing people to www.kswiss.com Social tends to make people forget to connect to their own platforms. K-Swiss can afford to not put a link to their website, entrepreneurs can’t.
Okay, you know who I was writing to, but the paragraph above is for Under Armour as well. Take the time and hire a few writers. Generate your own content and create a library for it on your site. Let it be indexed and then make sure you add links to product on that news/blog area. Under Armour is on the right track, but imagine, just imagine if UA and K-Swiss both had writers adding content and also sharing it from the brand platform out to the world?
pingbacks, backlinks, building organic SEO and storytelling…
Nice work by UA though, really nice work.
