Problem Statement
Under Armour's marketing goals were to drive brand awareness, purchase consideration, and conversions to their site. Their marketing goal was for players to experience how their athletic gear could enhance performance using science.
The 4 phases of amplification were marketed as: Generate, Activate, Circulate, & Improve.
Campaign Overview screen.
Advocating for Innovative Design
The scope of the campaign began as a simple brand presence integration: Logos and branding integrated within the game at a surface level. The brand alignment between UA x NBA seemed like a perfect match, and the RUSH campaign specifically felt like it was made to be created into a PLAYABLE & INTERACTIVE integration with more substance. Something the NBA Live Mobile team had not done before.
I created the concept above to illustrate the marketing potential this game already could achieve with very specific and strategic brands. All without as much additional development work as previously thought. The brand & the game team both unanimously loved the concept and the budget and development was approved. This template would go on to become a staple of many sponsorships within our EA Sports Mobile portfolio.
UA Branded court where RUSH events take place.
Card Upgrade progression.
The Concept
Players are given a branded Stephen Curry card that starts at a 60 OVR rating. As players use this card to play through custom made drills and events within a branded court, their Stephen Curry card gets more powerful, upgrading to a max 99 OVR. This is the driving factor that makes this partnership feel like your players are performing better, faster & stronger. This was inline with the goals of the RUSH campaign.
Animation of Curry player card being upgraded using UA Elite Drill tokens.
The Reception
Player reception was through the roof. The Steph Curry run in May 2019 completed with 3.4MM unique users & over 90MM events played.
Player responses were positive across the board, because the integration was well done, the brand was endemic to the game, and in the end the player walked away from this "ad" with a player card that is limited and powerful. There are huge learnings to be taken from the success of this campaign that I will drive within this company.
The success of the campaign led to a refresh of contract. UA ran the campaign again with Joel Embiid in June 2019, to 2.8MM unique users & an additional 74MM events played.
This innovative and valuable placement is now available for more brands to activate in.
Social post by NBA Live Mobile team after event completed.
