IMG Sports Marketing Symposium: Examining Under Armour's Success

The final panel of the conference's opening day lifted the lid on Under Armour, which in just 15 years has grown from a handful of staff working the trade show circuit to a billion-dollar sports and lifestyle juggernaut with more than 4,500 employees. The secret? Never sacrificing the brand, according to UA Senior VP/Brand Steve Battista. He said, “From the very beginning it has always been brand first. Accounting, finance -- it’s all of our jobs to build brand equity.” UA's media and marketing campaigns have always reflected lifestyle and brand image, as showcased in its debut TV advertisement in '03. Battista: “We had all these agencies come in and every one of them wanted to talk about the technology of the fabric. For us, that was a key point in our brand to say, ‘That’s great, but we need to show passion and emotion and what our brand is all about. If we have 30 seconds, we’re not going to talk about moisture-wicking microfiber fabrics. We’ll do that online or on a hangtag.’”