Very sneaky play by Under Armour this past weekend with the Curry4 release this past week…

The consumer release was celebrated in the Bay Area fans to engage in a scavenger hunt on Saturday to find locations where autographed pairs of Under Armour and Stephen Curry’s latest Curry 4 are being delivered via drone. UA released video that shows a drone carries a package over a community, with the presumption that it could drop the latest Curry kicks, called ‘More Dubs,’ in your neighborhood.

The campaign generated a lot of sizzle which was needed from the tough and fickle reviews from both the previous two releases of the ‘Chef Curry 2’ and Curry 3 models.

Under Armour has lot of pressure upon their basketball division. Even though the Chef Curry 2s sold well, the ‘where did you get those?!’ roastings that were heavy enough that the Curry 3s certainly didn’t perform as well in terms of burning a mark in the basketball performance and fashion worlds and worse yet, 2016 sales.

1. UA has a had a slew of price reductions with the past two releases from retailers.
2. They have a significant brand building challenge with Nike’s Kevin Durant pulling attention from each and every Warrior game and sneaker/colorway UA releases with Stephen Curry’s feats and appearances.
3. Basketball performance sales have been down over the past two years.

 

 

 

How will the Curry4s perform? As far as the shoe is concerned, the ‘Away’ versions of the shoe are much stronger, and the shoe has boosted up in terms of aesthetics.

With the social media mockeries that were bestowed with the last two versions, they put a ton of attention into the shoe with over 18 months of conceptualization and 20 different iterations. (By the way, if I hear of another design based upon an athlete’s ‘cars in his garage.’ This is as old as the Jordan Ferrari days. I would argue that the upper is a direct hit off the Flyknit Hyperdunks that have been arriving of late. Can’t one branch outside of personal auto tastes for design? Is that the only way you can get an athlete to buy in?)

All that said, you have to give kudos to UA for the attention they grabbed with the release. As much as this blogger holds a deep disdain from heavy drone usage, this is a very savvy play to generate excitement and engagement. The ‘drone’ campaign is a combination of ‘Pokemon’, public place, check-ins, tech, twitter mobs, and snobbery.

That’s a solid mix to play on the fanaticism for Curry and the Warriors in the Bay Area. Let’s see how the UA Curry 4 rolls into 2018.

BD