Under Armour's Brand Positioning Statement and Early Brand-Building Success

This article discusses Under Armour's brand positioning statement, early brand-building success, and measures to increase sales of women's sports equipment. It highlights the driving factors behind Under Armour's success, such as quality, campaigns, and product diversification. It also suggests measures such as discounts, new market entry, and new product development to increase sales of women's sports equipment.

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Question 1
The brand positing statement of Under Armour (UA) is “Express Yourself”.
To The female customers with an age group of 20 to 35 who are highly concern about their
health and fitness
Under
Armour
provides
Premium sports apparels and footwear with cutting edge technology and quality
That Offers sportswear and accessories with premium and high quality so that women can get
comfort
That is
because
 UA intends to expand its market
 Maximise female customers aggressively
 Ensure the sustainable business approach
 Compete with giant companies like Nike.
This brand positing statement of UA clearly defines that the company is willing to make its
customers confident and focused enough in every sphere of life. Empowerment of people
irrespective of their gender is considered to be one of the major aspect that the organisation is
following in order to incorporate both the men and women customers equally. A better world
where physical wellbeing and healthy body are desired, is the main objective for UA by
encouraging its customers through putting focus on fitness and healthy lifestyle.
There are some key driving factors that are responsible for the early brand-building
success for under Armour. Those factors are as follows,
i. Quality- Quality of the UA products were undoubtedly one of the best aspects that makes
the company a successful sports accessories manufacturing organisation. As a matter of
fact, the quality concerns were always seemed to be a principle approach for the
chairman and CEO, Kevin Plank. The aspiration of Plank was to topple Nike and for this
it is was highly important for the organisation to set its standard of quality to compete in

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the market. Moreover, focusing on cutting edge technologies for making the products
unique and innovative. High performance of the products is also associated with the
organisation where the company was intended to offer technical sports apparels for
customers.
ii. Campaigns- The campaigns were also considered to be an important aspect that UA was
focused upon. According to Vinerean (2017) the campaigns and promotions are
considered to be the most important aspect capitalising the market for any business
organisation. Therefore, UA CEO Plank also expected the importance of brand image
restoration and advertised it was the best possible approach that UA followed. For
instance, using the UA apparel for Oliver Stone’s film Any Given Sunday a creative shot
was taken and it was used at brand awareness. This football movie created huge exposure
and profit for UA that helped the company to set sponsorship and licensing relationship
with big sports events like Major League Baseball and National Hockey League.
iii. Product diversification- Product diversification refers to a wide range of products for
the customers so that they can choose their products from various options (Deligianni,
Voudouris and Lioukas 2017). It also makes companies to maximise its customers
through enhancing customer satisfaction (Benur and Bramwell 2015). For UA, putting
interests in sports shoe manufacturing and apparels for women increased its range of
customers and enhanced the possibility to not depend on any specific products. Entering
into the footwear market made it easier for UA to flourish its market effectively into the
mainstream footwear category. On the other hand, apparels for women also contributed a
lot to maximise the demographic market capitalisation for UA.

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Question 2
There are definitely some important aspects that UA has to work on in order to increase
its sales in the women’s sports equipment and it is essential for the organisation to implement an
effective measure to increase its sales.
Discounts
In association with the high pricing strategy, it should also be into consideration that
discount pricing is also an effective measure for the companies to expand business and maximise
customers effectively. According to Brea‐Solís, Casadesus‐Masanell and Grifell‐Tatjé (2015)
one of the major motive of discounts in products is to attract new and repeat customers. Through
the empirical research, it is seen that people prefer to buy products on sale and it was the
psychological nature of the buyers to go for products that have high quality and less price.
Moreover, from the perspective of the company also the sale and discounts are facilitating
strategic advantage in terms of free up the stores to bring new products. Alavi, Wieseke and
Guba (2016) pointed out that discounts provide the companies to free up their stores by giving
sale on older products. In return they fill the free space with new arrivals. As a result of that it
becomes an effective process for the business companies to use the discounts as a beneficial
practice to clear out the stocks. For the apparel industry it is a unique measure and very common
trend that the organisations follow. Moreover, Bohner and Minner (2017) also stated that the
discounts practice boost the reputation of the company. Therefore, for UA it will be a better
approach to boost its women apparel sales.

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New Market entry
The new market entry is identified as one of the best examples that can assist UA to
expand its business effectively. For instance, Ripollés and Blesa (2017) opined that new market
entry will increase the market capitalisation for the organisation by having a new set of
customers who can purchase the products and services. In fact, the exclusive target market is also
pertinent to understand the target market where a large consumer market can facilitate large
margin of profit. It seems an exclusive opportunity for the corporate organisations to encapsulate
the market effectively and maximise the customer base profoundly. Apart from this, Tulung
(2017) advocated about the adaptability of the organisation to deal with the change in the nature
of the customers. Therefore, the new market entry creates better opportunity for the enterprise to
learn more about the demand of the customers and shapes its products and services in course of
getting a better exposure to emphasize on the business sustainability. In addition to this, develop
the variety of products is identified as one of the major characteristics of new market entry.
Ripollés and Blesa (2017) confirmed that the variety of products led the company to manufacture
innovative and unique product. For UA, it will help to increase its sales of women sports
apparels.
New product development
As far as the research of Shareef et al. (2019) is concerned, the new product development
practice is clearly influence an organisation to put emphasis on the quality of its goods and
services. For UA, quality is referred to be the most important part to maintain the image and
prospect of the company. Besides this, the satisfaction of the customers and developing a value
creation among the target customers are also associated with the new product development.

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Therefore, those factors are highly associated and advantageous for UA to increase its sales of
Women sports apparels effectively.

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Reference
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Brea‐Solís, H., Casadesus‐Masanell, R. and Grifell‐Tatjé, E., 2015. Business Model Evaluation:
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