Mediapost Online Spin: I Give Under Armour's Marketing a Big Fat Z.E.R.O
I Give Under Armour's Marketing a Big Fat Z.E.R.O
Under Armour has received accolades for its marketing, including a term as Marketer of the Year. To be sure, “I Will What I Want" is a great campaign, but at the end of the day, it’s no better or worse than anything Nike, Reebok or Adidas have done with their aspirational advertising.
Personally, I’m overjoyed that Under Armour is being recognized -- selfishly, because it's the official sponsor of my English football club, Tottenham Hotspur. Under this partnership, Spurs have made several trips to the U.S .and given their fan base unprecedented access to their (my) beloved team and players.
In fact, I think the company deserves even more credit than it's been given, due to five key reasons.
1. Sales are up -- way up, led by four consecutive quarters of revenue growth of 30% or more. Too often we shirk or talk our way out of the all-important accountability of our marketing. We either give ourselves false credit for short-term gains or mitigate our ineffective marketing with a bunch of “external” excuses. One year is a pretty good period of time to judge performance; the causality between marketing and sales should be fairly transparent under these conditions
2. The company has done (and I’m not sure how) a magnificent job courting youth. My 11-year-old son and his entire social and sporting base is pretty much dripping in Under Armour from head to toe.
3. Under Armour has also courted women. I don’t think people realize how massive the female vote is when it comes to a healthy living and active lifestyle today. If you take a walk down Main Street in Westport, Conn., you’ll see Nike, Lululemon and at least one to two competitors to Lululemon!
4. Innovation beyond the product. At a time where startups like OmSignal are manufacturing wearable workout wear -- and no doubt all the big boys will be swimming in this space soon enough -- Under Armour did the Evol8tion two-step “What if Kodak acquired Instagram?” and acquired the powerhouse app MapMyFitness/MapMyRun/MapMyRide. I use MapMyRun myself and I was pretty impressed that Under Armour went for what I think is the leader in the space. The company has been pretty thoughtful and calculated in terms of the transition, branding and rollout of this partnership. In addition, following from the earlier point, Under Armour also launched a separate integrated app dedicated to women. I wonder what Reebok and Adidas are thinking right now? All I know is that the remaining apps in the same consideration set just added a “Zero” to their valuation.
5. Ultimately, Under Armour has demonstrated that it's a perfect Z.E.R.O. Paid Media Marketer. Its $18 million in measured media ( Z.E.R.O. isn’t free; nor is paid media going away) is just over a quarter of Nike’s (which in of itself is not that excessive) and might as well be Z.E.RO. in today’s noisy, cluttered, inflated and expensive marketplace. Under Armour truly has done a fantastic job of dialing up advocacy amongst its zealots, innovating with entrepreneurs, and maintaining a customer-centric approach to its retention.
So kudos to the marketing team at Under Armour. I give you a big fat Z.E.R.O. for your marketing efforts -- and believe me, that’s the highest compliment you could get!
For more wisdom from Joseph Jaffe visit www.jaffejuice.com and follow him @jaffejuice.
This week, Evol8tion was proud to partner with the Empire Startups Summit!
Through two full days of thought leadership, inspiring conversations, networking activities, and a pitch competition, the Summit celebrated New York City’s innovative spirit -- bringing top early-stage companies and tech industry veterans under Webster Hall's roof. Evol8tion's own co-founder and COO, Gina Waldhorn, moderated the Scaling Your Startup panel -- which featured experts from MasterCard, Microsoft, Foundation Capital, and Sprinklr:
For those of you who weren't able to attend the Summit, here are some of our key takeaways (along with our favorite startup of the evening)!
Advice for Founders:
- In strategic partnership conversations, always be sure to exercise reciprocity. In other words: ask the person you're seeking help from what THEY need. People in powerful positions (VCs, angels, etc.) are frequently asked for favors. Demonstrate professional sensitivity by showing that you care about what they want, too.
- Coachability and confidence: strike the balance. Investors like a confident, willful founder -- but arrogance is a major turn-off. Be conscious of the fact that venture capitalists have bucketloads of knowledge, and no matter how experienced you may be, they will always have something to teach you.
- Don't be a fair-weather entrepreneur. Now that the innovation space is booming, venture capitalists are seeing more and more corporate players move into entrepreneurship. While this move is sometimes spurred by legitimate passion, other times it is merely because entrepreneurship is a today's trendy profession. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, a hunger for innovation needs to run in your bloodstream. Faking it will only lead to failure.
- Your CEO should be your best salesperson. If your CEO can't sell it, no one can. So be sure that your leadership is actively at the helm of your business development team, and willing to get in the trenches to keep the lights on.
- Put skin in the game. All startup founders do (or should) already know this: but in order to get investment, you must first invest in yourself. If you won't shell out money for your own venture, you'll have a hard time convincing VC's to do so. Make sure your startup is worth your own money, before asking for it from others.
Star Startup:
Our star startup of the evening was Audiosnaps! Audiosnaps offers a new way to create user generated content -- capturing photos of important moments, and overlaying them with 5 seconds of sound from those moments.
From a brand perspective, short term video/disposable content trends like Vine and Snapchat are useful for momentary impressions. However, an Audiosnaps creation -- normal photography, paired with sound -- is a timeless, yet innovative option for lifestage-relevant and travel brands.
This technology is also ripe for partnerships with other startups. We could easily see a beautiful collaboration between Audiosnaps and conductive ink company Novalia to create interactive, lasting photo albums to better collect precious memories.
Wherever Audiosnaps goes, its future is looking bright. We'll be keeping an eye on it!
That's all for today's recap. Thanks to Empire Startups for an awesome event! Be sure to follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and check back here for the latest and greatest in startup news.
Apply for ad:tech Startup Spotlight Series New York 2014
Are you a startup in the advertising and technology space looking to connect with brand marketers? Apply for the ad:tech New York 2014 Startup Spotlight Series!
The ad:tech Startup Spotlight Series is a competition that acknowledges and rewards the most innovative and enterprising new companies in digital marketing today. If your startup does not fall within advertising technology, please pass along to any superstar ad tech companies that you know!
4 startups from the application pool will be chosen by each brand for a total of 16 entered into the finalist pitch competition.
Finalists in the competition will receive free exhibit space (a $4,000 value) at ad:tech New York, November 5-6, 2014 at Javits Center, and a chance to pitch their business live to one of the four participating brands.
Evol8tion will be helping to coach the finalists throughout the competition to put together presentations specifically catered toward the brand audience.
ad:tech New York 2014 has partnered with 4 of the world's largest brands to give your advertising technology startup the opportunity to pitch to billions of dollars in brand marketing power. Past brand judges have included Gap, Mastercard, and General Mills, among others.
Applications accepted through Friday, July 25, 2014. Apply now!
Stay connected for more info with @adtech and @evol8tion.
A very special Startup Spotlight congratulations to LISNR for closing 3.5M in funding!
LISNR is a comprehensive mobile engagement platform that develops mobile solutions for content creators, enhances mobile engagement for advertisers, and allows users to interact with the media/live environment everywhere.
LISNR's patent-pending technology unlocks an unsurpassed second screen experience tailored to the exact moment of engagement -- and within the LISNR family, there exist a variety of products to fit client needs, including LISNR NGAGE (engagement for the live audience), LISNR NTUNE (engagement for all media), and LISNR NGINE (content ad recommendation engine.
LISNR's ultimate goal is to activate sound everywhere, creating the ultimate companion second screen experience -- and needless to say, they're on their way.
For more information, check out their website here.
Follow them on Twitter: @lisnr
Want us to feature your startup on the next Startup Spotlight? Submit your startup to our database here for a chance to be featured on M+MV, and be considered for brand partnership!
Plyfe Talks Brand Partnership and Evol8tion Database
Last summer, we successfully matched superstar gamification startup Plyfe with one of Unilever’s most important Hispanic marketing initiatives, Divina Latina. Divina Latina was looking for new, innovative ways to increase audience engagement and participation on Facebook and Twitter — and with Plyfe’s magic touch, brand engagement rates exceeded all benchmarks, with over 86% of game challenges completed. The platform also proved to drive product interest and education, video consumption, repeat participation, and inspired 8% of players to share with friends.
Now, Plyfe’s back to talk lessons learned from their brand partnership, where they are now, and where it all began… Evol8tion’s startup database!
Advice for brand partnership:
"Be sure to strike a happy balance between your startup’s vision, and what a brand wants to accomplish. Passion for your concept will get you far — so find a brand who will believe in you as much as you believe in it. But remember, any partnership takes compromise and patience. So be driven, but stay flexible."
Where they are now:
"Besides partnering with Divina Latina, we’ve had customers that include Fortune 500 brands, ad networks, agencies, and social media managers. We were also named to Forbes’ list of America’s Top 100 companies in 2013, and have been featured on CNN, Mashable, and TechCrunch. Looking forward to what 2014 will bring!”
On Evol8tion’s startup database:
"It’s really a great resource for startups who want to make it, both through brand partnerships, and in general. As a startup in the database, Plyfe got invited to exclusive events, got free press on [the Evol8tion blog] M+MV, and got considered for a BrandMatch (and we all know how that ended)! Plus, it’s free.”
Thank you, Plyfe, for the positive feedback! And, startups: you heard ‘em. Start your journey to brand partnership and submit to the database today!
Check out this FIR article featuring Joseph Jaffe and Marteen Albarda's Z.E.R.O.
FIR Interview: Joseph Jaffe and Maarten Albarda, authors of ZERO
"Our position is that a perfect storm is coming," say Joseph Jaffe and Maarten Albarda as an attention-grabbing way to start a discussion about ZERO: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model, the new book by the two authors published by Wiley in October 2013.
It may already be here, adds Jaffe: "In the book, we introduce several key arguments - business, economic, consumer, media and creative cases - any of which could, by itself, be enough to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but when combined presents a perfect-storm scenario."
In this FIR Interview, Jaffe and Albarda describe the central premise of ZERO to co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz, explaining their thinking and passion behind ZERO’s core principle: if media inflation continues to outpace and run away from economic inflation, the bottom may fall out the media model.
They explain the meaning behind each letter in the book’s title - Zealots (advocacy), Entrepreneurship (innovation), Retention (customer-centricity), and Owned Assets (direct-to-consumer channels).
The two men believe that "ZERO marketing" is all about slow burn and long tail. "It’s about using existing customers to gain new ones," they declare. "It’s about utilizing customers and advocates in innovative ways, leveraging existing assets as opposed to piggy-bagging on the borrowed interest and/or equity of middlemen."
Specifically written for C-suite executives who work for leading brands, ZERO: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model is a ten-point action plan that responds to Jaffe’s and Albarda’s no-holds-barred call to action for corporations and their marketers to adapt or die amid an increasingly turbulent, changing, and dynamic media landscape.
Get this podcast:
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Stop us if this doesn't sound familiar. The holidays are fast approaching, gifting season is upon you, and the hours to find perfect presents are running out. But with every store you visit, you feel more out of your element. Your guesses at what your loved ones want are vague, at best -- and for some reason, you just don't believe the sales lady when she tells you that this perfume would be perfect for your dad.
Never fear -- Jifiti is here. Jifiti is a handy gifting app that takes the guessing out of giving, right down to size, color & style. Essentially, shoppers can select gifts in-store, online, or thumbing through the app -- and 'teleport' these products to their friends instantly as digitally transmitted gift cards. If the gift is a hit, friends may use the digital card to redeem the item in-store and select the appropriate size, color and style. But if it's a miss, they can use the gift card to purchase something else, hassle free.
As the holidays approach, we'd rather be spending time with family than pounding the retail pavement. So thank you, Jifiti, for letting us sit back, relax, and enjoy another eggnog.
