Under Armour: #Breakthegame [image]

Credits & Description:

Nomination: Mobile
Category: Social : Real-time Response
Award: Bronze Lion
Title: #Breakthegame
Agency: Droga5, Under Armour
Brand: Under Armour
Country: USA
Entrant Company: Droga5, New York
Advertising Agency: Droga5, New York / Under Armour, Baltimore
Production Company: O Positive, New York
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer (Droga5)
Creative Chairman: David Droga (Droga5)
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale (Droga5)
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer (Droga5)
Executive Creative Director: Tim Gordon (Droga5)
Senior Data Strategist: Anthony Khaykin (Droga5)
Executive Group Director: Julian Cheevers (Droga5)
Associate Creative Director: Laurie Howell (Droga5)
Associate Creative Director: Toby Treyer-Evans (Droga5)
Senior Broadcast Producer: Jennifer Chen (Droga5)
Executive Producer: David Cardinali (Droga5)
Co-Head Of Strategy: Harry Roman-Torres (Droga5)
Strategy Director: Sam Matthews (Droga5)
Strategist: Newman Granger (Droga5)
Senior Communications Strategist: Hillary Heath (Droga5)
Group Strategy Director: Will Davie (Droga5)
Head Of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy (Droga5)
Account Supervisor: Jordan Cappadocia (Droga5)
Project Manager: Connor Hall (Droga5)
Execution:
Before the playoffs, we shot over a hundred 3-second ads with Stephen Curry, planning ahead for different situations so each ad would be contextual when it was tweeted out. Some were for when Curry broke a shooting record. Some were for when he hit back to back 3's. Some were specifically for buzzer beaters. Some were even for crazy acrobatic plays. Others were for when he was having an incredible game. We organized each 3-second ad into contextual categories then during games we simply tweeted out the right 3-second ad based off of the 3-point shot Curry made through Under Armour Basketball’s Twitter handle, right as he made it. By the end of Curry’s two and a half month long playoff run, we’d released 91 original 3-second ads, all for less than the cost of airing a playoff spot once.
Synopsis:
On his way to winning MVP and the NBA title, Stephen Curry became the most popular player in basketball and one of the most popular athletes in the world. On the surface, this was great for us. We had the singular transformative player who could build the Under Armour basketball brand from scratch.But his meteoric rise also presented us with serious challenges.1) Other brands were swooping in to capitalize on his star power.2) Everybody on every platform was talking about him.3) We had limited investment allocated to put behind him.Given these three factors, the brand was being drowned out by the cultural frenzy. Custom quantitative analysis confirmed our worst fear—people weren’t connecting Curry to the brand. We needed a culturally relevant, non-traditional idea that would get people talking and connect Curry back to the brand.
Strategy:
Knowing that approximately 94% of teens are simultaneously using other media while watching TV, we tapped into the second-screen viewing habits of UA’s young athlete audience across social channels.As the go-to social companion for real-time sports updates (like playoff games) Twitter was our choice for the central campaign platform. Using smart targeting and sequential messaging strategies, we served our three-second videos to people we knew were watching and engaging with the game.We used Facebook and Instagram as additional social platforms to drive program reach and keep us socially relevant beyond the real-time three-point moments.
Campaign Description:
Online chatter about Curry spiked while he was actually playing, so we knew people watched while cruising social media on their phone. All the hype was focused on his three-point shots, each one becoming its own in-game event. So we hijacked the mobile experience to turn Curry’s biggest moments—his threes—into Under Armour moments, too. Every single time Curry hit a three during the 2016 playoffs, we tweeted a new three-second ad starring Curry right as the shot dropped, linking his incredible on-court performances with Under Armour in real time for the Warriors entire two-and-a-half-month-long playoff run.
Outcome:
The results were impressive. The project was viewed in 53 countries, garnering 130 million social media impressions, driving a 20 percent increase in global conversations linking Curry with Under Armour. In the end we’d released 91 original three-second ads giving us two-and-a-half-months of original content. And we did it all for less than the cost of airing a playoff spot once.