2014 Marketer of the Year: Under Armour

Ad Age's 2014 Marketer of the Year: Under Armour
Arresting Advertising, Textbook PR and a Take-No-Prisoners Approach Push Brand Ahead of the Establishment

By E.J. Schultz. Published on December 08, 2014.


Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank does not mince words when asked about the company's first attempt at attracting women. "We stunk," he said, conceding that the original clothing line in the early 2000s was "made by a bunch of dudes." It was so bad the company sent the first batch, worth $600,000, straight to an incinerator.

But lately the company's sales -- not its clothes -- are on fire, thanks to a groundbreaking women's campaign, smart PR and a take-no-prisoners approach embodied by Mr. Plank, a feisty former University of Maryland football player whose goal is to topple Nike and become the world's top retail sports brand.

The company, which was founded in 1996, is on pace to reach $3 billion in revenue this year and recently completed its 18th consecutive quarter of more than 20% sales growth. Those results, along with the hugely successful "I Will What I Want" women's campaign fromDroga5, are why Ad Age named Under Armour our 2014 Marketer of the Year.

"There is just a cultural attitude at Under Armour of we can be a little better, we can push a little harder. So why would we set our sights on anything but being No. 1?" Mr. Plank said in an interview at the company's corporate headquarters in blue-collar Baltimore, which includes an employee cafeteria aptly named Humble and Hungry.

At the rate it's going, Under Armour might "just do it." While Nike's sales are still 10 times larger, Under Armour, in the 12 months ending in August, increased revenue at three times Nike's pace, Bloomberg reported in early September. It's "well on its way to becoming the second-largest global athletic brand, ultimately eclipsing Adidas," Canaccord Genuity stated in a Dec. 1 report to investors, projecting the company would surpass $10 billion in sales within five years.

Under Armour's 2014 performance was so strong it managed to turn losses into wins. For instance, Nike in late summer outgunned Under Armour for a coveted 10-year deal with NBA star Kevin Durant, worth a reported $300 million. But Under Armour's aggressive pursuit likely forced Nike to pay more, Mr. Plank said at the time, while signaling the company means business. "We put every athletic director, team president [and] league commissioner on notice that Under Armour should be in the game for any deal that is out there globally," said the 42-year-old Mr. Plank, who founded the company in his grandmother's basement.

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