Squeak… Squeak… Squeak…
As training camp commences throughout the NBA, the sounds of sneakers being broken in across gym floors can quietly be heard. Teams have announced lucrative contract extensions to promising young players, like the Indiana Pacers’ Paul George and the Sacramento Kings’ DeMarcus Cousins. These personnel decisions demonstrate a franchise’s commitment to building around foundation pieces for the present and future. They hope that their talent, too, serves as a marketing asset worthy of the investment.
Likewise, shoe companies constantly vie for that same leverage, albeit at far less expensive labor costs. Although shoe deals haven’t been as profitable to players as in years past, this particular endorsement still represents their highest source of income off the court. Any additional revenue streams invariably pale in comparison. Thus, brands battle for the services of the elite basketball players in the land.
The most recent headline involves Golden State Warriors’ star, Steph Curry. Yahoo! Sports reported last week that Curry has decided to leave Nike for Under Armour. This move is a significant one in the basketball shoe industry. Both companies reveal how they plan to position themselves going forward. It’s apparent that Curry’s choice means more to Under Armour than to Nike, but perhaps the latter shoe giant overlooked what he truly brings to the table as a spokesperson.
For Nike, they understand that no one player in their basketball roster supersedes the value of the brand equity they’ve established. This standard is further supported by their stance to refuse to dole out substantial money to players outside of their core, signature group: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant. Any other basketball player wearing their product deems to be virtually superfluous. Those players must prove their marketability worth through player editions iterations of their other models, besides on-court performance. As Bryant’s career nears closure, Nike has elected Kyrie Irving–Uncle Drew’s digital triumph must have played a role–over Curry to spearhead their future.
Still, Nike may not have completely capitalized on Curry’s social media savvy. There’s only been a couple of times where Curry has been featured in their digital efforts. Within Nike Basketball’s YouTube channel, they first highlighted him in a segment called “Nike Basketball Signature Moves”, which were a little over 60 seconds spots visualizing some of his go-to moves. This past NBA All-Star Weekend, he was a part of their athlete lounge series hosted by Damon Jones, which were casual conversations catching up with the athlete. These videos have been subsequently taken off their over 210,00 subscriber base on this platform due to the recent news.
For Under Armour, their relevance should heighten among basketball consumers because of Curry’s profile and as a technology adopter. His #SC30 monthly social media contests have been well-documented. He has also partnered with SportStream in order to provide fans a tailored stream of content based off their SportsBase platform on his personal website; along with a Social Pulse widget to showcase the ongoing social media dialogue. Such measures can amplify future campaign opportunities to their liking. Curry is closing in on a million Twitter followers, too, which is almost triple the volume to the next Under Armour basketball endorser’s account, Greivis Vasquez. There’s no shortage of distribution outlets to tap into for the brand from this influencer.
“This partnership represents our continued commitment to grow Under Armour Basketball globally. Stephen and Under Armour share the same competitive underdog spirit and family-first attributes that make this new relationship so natural. Stephen and Under Armour will strategically work together to positively impact the next generation of young basketball players everywhere,” said Matt Mirchin, Under Armour’s Senior Vice President of Global Brand and Sports Marketing.
Previously, the brand’s best ad campaign to date was entitled “Are you from here?” This campaign personified the essence of Under Armour and the stories behind each of their athletes. Beyond that initiative, there’s been two notable digital activation attempts. Brandon Jennings’ “Under the Armour” webisodes shed light on his personal life have been successful through garnering over 122,000 YouTube views on average, for the most part, during its two seasons.
Why this web series consisting of nearly 12,000 subscribers–more than double of Under Armour’s–and its own Twitter handle is isolated from the brand’s social channels is unknown. And this past season they ran a #DeAndreDunkFace Twitter contest–days after he did this to Brandon Knight–for a chance to meet DeAndre Jordan at Champs Sports. This campaign registered 259 retweets, 125 favorites, and 14 replies between Under Armour, Champ Sports, Complex Magazine, and Jordan’s Twitter accounts. A lot more can be done to comprehensively activate throughout social mediums.
According to SportsOneSource retail analysts, Matt Powell: “Overall, I don’t think think any athlete really pays for himself today in the endorsement market. The ability of a player to really move shoes is relatively slim.”
With that in mind and Under Armour just holding a 0.23 share of the basketball shoe market, Curry mentioned that they share his “passion for working hard and taking no short cuts.” The brand also needs–above all else–innovation through maximizing his social media presence to have any chance to grow that aforementioned metric.