Under Armour Signs Refugee Olympian Yusra Mardini, Releases 90-Second Spot

Under Armour has signed Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini -- who represented the Refugee Olympic Team at the '16 Rio Games -- as the "latest edition to its team of international athlete endorsers," according to Erik Oster of ADWEEK. UA also has "released a 90-second spot to accompany the announcement on its social media pages." It features Mardini "telling her harrowing story in her own words." The spot was made by Nordpol, Germany, "working with UA’s European in-house creative team; agency Droga5 was not involved." Mardini in the spot says, "I shouldn’t be alive today. I should have been killed by the bomb that hit the pool in Damascus." She is "alive today, she explains in the ad, simply because she 'kept moving.'" Oster notes the 19-year-old Mardini has "become the youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador for UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and was named" to Time magazine’s 30 Most Influential Teens of '16 (ADWEEK.com, 10/23).