Clothing companies are a dime a dozen these days. It’s hard to scroll social media for more than 5 minutes without seeing another clothing company offering what they swear is a great deal on clothing you can’t differentiate from the last 12 advertisements you saw. Starting a clothing brand is a common outlet for entrepreneurs who don’t have any better ideas, but often if fails for lack of true innovation. Not Under Armour, though.
Kevin Plank, a former football team captain at University of Maryland, wanted clothing that would withstand sweat and rigorous physical activity. In 1996, he developed his first real prototype: The Shorty. The idea was that it was tight, light, moisture wicking, and dry. For the next couple of years, he developed heatgear and coldgear, and sold clothing from his grandmothers basement in Washington DC. After moving into a warehouse in Baltimore, it wasn’t until 1999 when Plank signed on to supply product for a football movie Any Given Sunday starring Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx that UA started gaining traction.
Wanting to make the most of the brand following the movie deal, the UA team decided to forego their paychecks and use them to purchase an ad in the ESPN magazine. This generated more than $750,000 of new sales and even more new brand awareness. By 2001, they were the official supplier for NHL, and had licensing deals with MLB and USA Baseball.
The main lessons to take away from this are differentiation and perception.
UA had to differentiate itself right off the bat in order to gain any traction. Thankfully, this was easier to do in 1996 than it would be today. In fact, it would be pretty difficult to differentiate UA from other clothing brands because there are so many that make similar items. But, it doesn’t matter because of the second lesson: perception. Because they were early to the clothing industry, they established their presence and dominance. While many Instagram-ad clothing brands are very comparable to UA items, UA has a distinct advantage: countless deals with NFL, NHL, NBA, or other teams, universities, movies, tv shows, or celebrities. They were able to differentiate themselves long enough to gain a brand loyalty and a favorable perception, and once they gained that favorable perception they no longer had to differentiate.
I’m fairly surprised that Under Armour was the first to design a sweat resistant material that could also keep you cool. Under Armour did a nice job of gaining support not only from day to day athletes, but from famous celebrities which really put it over the top with $750,000 in sales. Also, the fact that this business began as a former football player selling clothing out of his grandmothers basement further justifies how businesses have to start somewhere. This story really inspires me and makes me want to innovate regular clothing and turn it into something useful.
Under Armour is such an unbelievable brand. They stand for great things and have made high quality products throughout all their years. Kevin plank being an athlete made a brand for athletes. He understood what we wanted and needed and made it happen.