Under Armour Failure Essay

Even after being in a financial crisis, Under Armour kept in mind what Kevin Plank, always described Under Armour as, he described it as brand that means performance. With the help of Adidas, Under Armor valiantly fought to keep their name by trying a multitude of ideas such as creating a brand new shoe with Adidas. This shoe never worked with the customer base because Under Armour had removed their focus from their original brand and the customers could see this; and it ultimately lead to the devaluation of their brand.
Under Armour also tried to retrieve their brand name by incorporating famous athletes to further market their brand as desirable. So they sought out all of the athletes they have sponsored such as Derrick Williams, Kimba
Instead of just making sports wear sunglasses they decided to try their hand at casual wear such as aviators and even tried to market their own designer frames for prescription glasses. Due to financial restraints they were not able to fully take on a challenge of this magnitude. Also, the consumer base was just used to the sportswear so the casual wear and prescription designer frames were of no interest to the buyer. Under Armour once again had to scrap this new idea to pursue other endeavors to save their brand
By this time the brand had already devalued itself so far to the point that the customer was not even going to buy just for the logo anymore and were very weary on trying anything with the Under Armour brand attached to it. Unfortunately, they decided to go forward with it anyway even getting a big contract deal from the PGA tour. They had a chance to show what they were made of and had a chance at all the hat and cap rights for the tour. They only bought low end items in the areas that they had to such as the thread. This ended up being an embarrassment to Under Armor because once sweat and dirt got into these threads the hats and caps would start fraying and coming apart after only a couple of days of wearing. The PGA tour was smart and had seen all of the failings of the company so far, so they did their own testing before using the caps and found all of these problems before these hats and caps could be worn by the golfers on national television. This lost Under Armour a much needed contract which would have turned the companies brand around and got them the much needed revenue they needed to pursue future