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Future of TV Advertising Week Under Armour

Under Armour apps the focus for consumer engagement but traditional ads still have a role to play, says its digital VP

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By Stephen Lepitak, -

September 29, 2015 | 4 min read

Under Armour's investment in connected devices is part of a community building strategy that it believes will be its most impactful engagement tool, more so than its above-the-line elements, but those are still part of the game plan according to Jim Mollica, vice president of digital for the clothing and accessories company.

Speaking on The Drum's Found Remote social television panel during Advertising Week, Mollica was asked about the connected device strategy that the company had undertaken having invested in performance monitoring apps such as MapMyFitness, Ndomondo, MyFitnessPal and UA Record, reportedly investing $700m in the process.

"An interesting thing for us is that the more and more content that is made available, whether it is through broadcast or streaming, the elements will start to change. While thirty second spots are incredibly important, they can still be a trigger moment for a campaign, but what is really interesting is how you start to look at the content strategy," he explained, mentioning partner sporting events such as the U.S. Open as one example of available content it could utilise.

He went on to highlight the amount of behavioural data that the apps provided the business: "The beauty of these new communities that we purchased; MapMyFitness is probably the largest database of food intake in the history of mankind and helps millions of people live a healthier life, With MapMyFitness and now UA Record, all of these apps are communities around an interest point and what we have found is that we are trying to one up with ways that we add value back to the consumer and value around areas of authority and continue to provide that along the way."

In February, the company revealed 72 million women registered on its platform and expected the connected division to employ over 500 people by the end of the year due to the investments it was making.

Despite this, traditional marketing techniques do continue to for part of the Under Armour strategy if the recent ad for Ridley Scott movie is any indicator.

"When someone sees a fantastic new spot that triggers, there's another new piece of content around the new movie, The Martian with Matt Damon in UA gear as he trains because it supports this notion that astronauts are superhuman and we are the ultimate performance brand. That helps the realism of the movie and the structure and bridging to a new frontier and it helps us to reinforce that. And then that starts to help the other pieces that we have around the community. It's a lot more work as you're playing with that content strategy and it will take a lot more time and money and we haven't really exercised a lot of the marketing community but the bet is that it will have far greater impact impact than a traditional spot along the way," he added.

Earlier this month, UA EMEA marketing director, Chris Carroll indicated to The Drum that the brand would aim to move away from TV advertising to concentrate on digital and social channel engagement.

Mollica was joined on the Found Remote panel by Jessica Sheehan, VP and head of Social Media for JPMorgan Chase, Chad Parizman, director of convergent media at Scripps Networks Interactive and Marc DebEvoise, executive vice president and general manager of CBS Digital Media.

Future of TV Advertising Week Under Armour

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