Do you know Under Armour? It is a super cool sports equipment brand that helps athletes perform better… but it is not an easily recognizable brand in the region.

Compared to other big sports brands, Under Armour has a very low awareness and people don’t even know its logo or know what it does when they see the name. That’s probably because it’s a new brand in the region.

The brand wanted to improve the understanding of what they actually are among consumers and what they represent in an effort to boost overall recognition and consideration among their target audience.

As the sports community loves a good challenge, Under Armour tapped into that insight to develop a viral TikTok challenge building awareness and relevance in a market where it was not very well known or recognizable.

To gain a better understanding of who these people were in the UAE, we conducted interviews with some athletes and social influencers in the sports world.

Diving deeper into our audience we found that they are very active on social media and use it to find like-minded communities and groups online.

TikTok is also a very big platform for them, using it on either a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Throughout the research and interviews, three themes came back constantly:

● The pursuit of the next challenge, and the one after that

● The importance of allies and a community that keeps them going

● The role of TikTok as the most community-driven platform for sports

This was the starting point for our creative idea: Could brand recognition be as simple as launching a challenge to the Under Armour logo using your body?

Introducing the #UAChallenge.

Despite being open in the region since 2015, the brand was facing low awareness and consideration levels. 2021 provided a new chance for Under Armour with the opening of a brand-new house in Dubai Mall that included state-of-the-art features and technologies.

In order to achieve that, we were not looking for those who wear sportswear just to look cool. We were looking for the athletes of the UAE. Those that are passionate about sport and training, and not just wearing the clothes without partaking in any physical activity. Hard core athletes and lifestyle active influencers that would increase the reach of the brand.

The challenge: How could we grow the brand and logo recognition and consideration for Under Armour within the athletes’ communities of the UAE – in a way that is true both to our brand ethos and athletes’ culture?

Introducing the #UAChallenge

The Under Armour logo has a very simplistic design, combining two “U’s”, one of which is upside down, that form an “A”, accompanied by all black text with the words “Under Armour” spelled out beneath it. Combined together though, the two elements of the logo form a really crisp, unique looking crisscross that is immediately recognizable and aesthetically appealing.

This was the starting point of our challenge #UAChallenge

From there, we challenged TikTokers to recreate our logo in fun and unique ways to get them to come to our brand-new flagship store. We offered a prize to a select number of winners to make the challenge even more appealing.

TikTokers took the initial challenge and stretched it to the max, coming up with some very creative and near impossible positions to showcase our logo. One user did some football tricks, other flips before finally landing in the logo position. Another recreated it while hanging upside down from monkey bars.

People really went all out to make this a very fun challenge for both viewers and participants.

Our #UAChallenge campaign was very successful in making consumers aware of the brand, the logo and what Under Armour does.

It led to an overall increase in brand awareness with a 21% increase in logo recognition post-campaign. We also improved brand consideration by doubling purchase intent, and finally improved the understanding of what Under Armour is: a brand made for athletes. Under Armour went from 28% pre-campaign to 63% association of their logo with sports brands post-campaign.

Now, do you know Under Armour?