UNDER ARMOUR S.E. ASIA
TOWIT CAMPAIGN
Ideation / Art Direction / Design / Copywriting
Under Armour S.E. Asia had put out an RFP for the global “The Only Way Is Through” campaign to be localised for Singapore. The agency I was with at the time started to develop our creative strategy, I was the lead art director/designer. The art direction of Under Armour was simple enough to follow but it came down to how we executed – what could we do differently? We were scouring the locations of Under Armour’s locations in Singapore, when we stumbled on a gantry/walkway suspended over Orchard Rd not far from their main store. We knew we had to include that somehow in the pitch.
We decided on branding the Orchard Gateway walkway simply with the campaign tagline as part of the response, and it worked – we won the pitch. To our surprise it had never been used to advertise anything, but quickly found out as trying to secure it was an almost impossible task. Trying different iterations and ways around the rules, but the centre that owned the walkway eventually said no. But we continued on with the more traditional OOH locations close to Under Armour’s store locations.
Soh Rui Yong/ Marathon Runner
Amita Berthier/ Foil Fencer
As part of the campaign localisation, we had Soh Rui Yong who was already an ambassador of the brand. But there was a definite need of a female voice – an ambassador to help draw the female audience and someone whom a nation could get behind like Soh. I begun an extensive search for an athlete who fitted the TOWIT tone and found a young fencer – Amita Berthier. She wasn’t sponsored, nor been used in any big campaigns, and she’d gone through some trials in life. Amita was the perfect fit being a young, determined and fearless athlete, and the first ever Singaporean fencer to qualify for that years Olympics. It was amazing to see her get picked up by Under Armour, and shed a spotlight on such an incredible athlete.
For maximum exposure, the campaign was to use OOH in-and-around the main traffic areas of Singapore. I designed, wrote headlines based on experiences these athletes had faced, and mocked up various OOH placements that we were going to use to promote the campaign. To support the local athletes Soh and Amita, we also proposed some more global names like Steph Curry and The Rock to be positioned in more elevated OOH placements.
As part of the concepting I knew pretty-well everyone uses music to pump themselves up beforehand or during a workout to get through a session. So could we create some OOH to promote not only Under Armour’s earbuds/headphones, but make a bespoke playlist by some of the athletes along with short motivator-type speeches to encourage you to persevere through it.
Seeing the Orchard Road walkway was out, we even looked into taping in the subway system that’s in Singapore. One of the main targets being Bugis Station which has really high foot traffic to gain awareness. I developed a concept of a split black and white tunnel with messaging to create more campaign awareness, and direct commuters to a few NFC points located the ends of the tunnel. These correlated to the campaign with mental motivators you could get on your phone and coupons for ‘be seen’ Under Armour apparel like reflective tops and shoes.
