More Videos
- Time Lapse World Series Is A Great Play
- Boise State Stock Plan: An Early Success
- Dollar Signs Seen In Young "Buck" Jennings
- Iverson Wasn't A Popular "Answer"
- My Top 10 Marketing Ideas For Winless Nets
- Airlines Add 'Super Bowl' Tax
- Chicken Wing Finder Makes Debut
- Michelle Wie Wins, Now What?
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- The Breakdown: LeBron To Change To No. 6?
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Existing-Home Sales Jump To Highest Level in 2-1/2 Years
- Start-Up Proves Everything Really Is Better With Bacon
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- Wall Street Finds Profits by Reducing Mortgages
- Cadbury Hits New High as Bidders Circle
- China Asks Its Banks to Slow Down
- MBS Buyback Program Should be Extended: Fed's Bullard
- Expect a 'Square Root-Shaped' Recovery: Chief Investor
- Madoff—The Holiday Drink
- HP to Feed on Enterprise Spending Next Year: Tech Analyst
- Busch: Markets Smell a Country Rat
- Schork Oil Outlook: Mission Impossible For The Bears?
- S&P Stocks Trading at New 52-Week Highs
- Losey: Asset Allocation At Retirement
- Farrell: Obama Hectored, Ignored and Restricted?
- Don't Dwell on Investment Mistakes; Move on, Like Buffett
- Existing-Home Sales Jump to 2-1/2 Year High
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- US Job Losses to Bottom out Next Quarter: NABE
- Obama Jobs Forum May Be More Political Than Practical
- Late Payments on Credit Cards Drop in Third Quarter
- Suze Orman’s 'A Healthier, Wealthier You'
- Latest Holiday Drinks: The Madoff...and the TARPatini
- Madoff Trustee, Law Firm Submit $22.1 Million Bill
- JPMorgan's Dimon Could Succeed Geithner: Report
Sports Biz
Text Size 
Every time Under Armour announces its earnings, they get pounded for the same thing: high marketing costs.
Wall Street is obsessed with that. Personally, I think it’s overblown. They’re a growing company that’s now going head-to-head with Nike [NKE
Loading...
()
]. Couple that with the fact that the marketing costs aren’t necessarily going up as much as they are merely being shifted. The costs were front loaded this year to make way for Under Armour’s biggest initiative yet--getting into the cross training market.
I got my shoes the day before they hit stores and I’ll tell you this. If I’m an investor, I’m more focused on the box strategy that the shoes themselves.
Check out the image of the box.
 |
Under Armour Shoe Box |
 |
Under Armour Shoe Box |
You see, despite the impression of these high marketing costs, the folks at Under Armour [UARM Loading... ()
] decided that it was worth it to put the shoes in one of the coolest shoe boxes ever made. It has a see through top so consumers can look at the shoes. When the shoes are taken off the box bottom, consumers will find this great point of purchase display that will try to make the sale to them. Which of the three UA shoes are right for you? "I said to our creative team, 'In order to go through with this we better love this because of the bottom line cost,’” said Under Armour Senior VP of Brand, Steve Battista. “And everyone was emphatic that this was important to the whole strategic vision that every box would be its own point of purchase display."
This is the great thinking that got Under Armour to where it is today. Many of the stores where shoes are sold are self service. So the folks at Under Armour realized that they needed to work harder to help sell the shoes to the consumers through the box.
Battista wouldn’t disclose the cost of the boxes, but said it would only be for used for the launch of these shoes and roughly costs as much as a week full of Under Armour TV commercials.
It’s amazing to me that a company that has barely been in the shoe market could dream up something like this. It’s a great idea. Now let's see if it works.
FYI: The box was made by Paccess Packaging which has also done work for Nike.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes