Social Media Monitoring 2: Under Armour - Rule Yourself

In Part 1 of my Social Media Marketing project, I introduced you to Under Armour and their Rule Yourself campaign. I got a good general sense of their social media presence and the effect "Rule Yourself" had on their popularity. In Part 2 I will dive deeper into their analytics, target demographics, competition and lastly, my recommendations on how Under Armour could improve.




Social Media - Hashtags

Under Armour's campaign not only highlights start athletes, but they are all about the hashtags! They are keeping up with the groundswell in knowing hashtags can generate discussions and a following.  In Chapter 10 of Groundswell, they discuss the importance and impact of Twitter. Twitter is where hashtags really originated and since then have become a useful part of Facebook and Instagram, as well. #RuleYourself has become a popular hashtag for the company, but #IWill remains the top mention for the company. "I Will" stems from their campaign "I will what I want" which is aimed for women (it speaks to women who do not wait for permission, advice or affirmation from others in order to go after what they want). 

Quickly, Rule Yourself and I Will What I Want merged into UA using both campaigns together. Where you see "Rule Yourself" you now tend to see "I will" which I believe strengthens their brand presence. 

UA launched Rule Yourself on August 24th of this year. By looking through their past posts on their Facebook page, the amount of likes ranged anywhere from 200-3,000. Here is their post on launch day:

That is 17,000 likes! 

This data below is from the "Likes" section of their facebook. As you can see, a lot more people are "liking" Under Armour (up .6% from last week). Don't let that steep slope scare you. They are comparing yesterday to today in that section and it is only 9:00am. 

And here is their fan growth (from Social Baker) over the past 3 months. 

OK. So we get that Under Armour is on a steady increase in fan and customer base (their revenues have grown at a rate higher than 20% for 16 straight fiscal quarters! - Forbes). Further down I discuss who these customers and fans are. 

Competition

Last week I was able to show you the strong difference between Nike and Under Armour on Google Trends. Now let's take a quick look at some other similar companies.

As you can see, both Nike and Adidas surpass Under Armour on Google Trends. However, UA quickly beat out Adidas to become the second (to Nike) largest sportswear manufacturer in the US. Reebok is in a similar spot (Google-wise) as UA, however their sales are much less. And just because you're being talked about more- doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing for your brand!

Nike has 23,236,468 people that have "liked" their facebook page. Under Armour pales in comparison with 3,927,732. I believe Nike has been a more established company (founded in 1964) with a longer list of celebrity endorsements, where UA (founded in 1996) is just beginning to get their celebrity backing. 

With 50+ years comparing to under 20 years, it's hard to say that UA may not be in the same place as Nike in the future!

Target Market

UA has always seemed to target 18 to 34-year-old athletes and, more specifically, men. But in July of 2014, they made a huge push for women. This article gave some useful information - "The women's apparel division is supplying 30 percent of the company's revenue, a sharp rise from just 18% three years ago, and is well on its way to surpassing the men's division." 

This is a great step for Under Armour, in my opinion, and it has obviously done well as far as fans and sales.

Here is data from Alexa showing their current audience demographics for UnderArmour.com Looks like college women are far surpassing men now!

Data from Alexa showing their current audience demographics for facebook.com/underarmour 

But who else can they target? Under Armour does have a youth section. It contributes to about $220 million to the company's revenue and they expect it to grow more than 100% by 2016. While I personally don't see much social media presence on the youth apparel, they obviously aren't doing too shabby. Perhaps they could do that much better if the youth apparel did have a stronger social media presence. Most parents are on social media. 

Now let's think of who they aren't targeting that maybe they should. 

Under Armour has always been after the athletes and the very active, exercising people. However, a whole other market they could be missing out on is right in front of our faces almost every day...

Those that work outdoors year-round!

It can get very hot in the summer and very cold and snowy in the winter. I'm sure there are those employees that wear Under Armour to work, but it's a market that UA is totally leaving out. 

They may not be the star athletes or even the ones that hit the gym everyday, but their jobs are hard and are in extreme temperatures at least 50% of the year. Why shouldn't they be a target demographic? I can already imagine the creative and motivating ads that Under Armour could come up with! 

Personally, however, I believe Under Armour should work on sustaining their current market rather than stretch to expand it. They have involved some very serious athletes in their campaigns that can target almost anyone that is a fan of some sort of sport. That is the best decision they could've made (in my opinion). If they continue to make their social media presence based around motivating customers rather than pushing their products, it could continue to show real value. I view Under Armour as a "tough" brand and I believe the sense of pride you get while wearing their clothing proves that. 

Please, Under Armour - never aim to be the fashionable/cute ones!