UNDER ARMOUR MARKETING PLAN AND STRATEGY ESSAY

UNDER ARMOUR MARKETING PLAN AND STRATEGY ESSAY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The purpose of this report is to plan the ideal strategy of the marketing plan of Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018. Under Armour have innovativeness and passionate love to sports and everything active have chosen to open up its market to the sportsmen and women all across the world. They are making the most out of its assets and are striving to increase the brand awareness. (Boone & Kurtz 2013).

Their strategy is to introduce price cuts on their products, increase their marketing budget and opening new subsidiaries across the globe. With their success, they will solely rely on the ability to expand into the new market and to successfully market their product accordingly.

The company’s brand continues to strengthen as it gains more visibility globally. Given the upturns of the economy, the sport apparel market is bound to enjoy greater growth in the coming years (Charter, 2017). 

The report will follow the marketing plans along with the product brief and its market presence in current days. This report will help to make the marketing strategies in a planned and efficient way, so that it will help to grow Nike in a more efficient manner.

Table of Contents

IMPLEMENTAION AND EVOLUTION PLAN 8

COMPANY PROFILE

Under Armour, is an American multinational company that manufacture footwear and casual appeal? The company was established in the year 1996; 23 years ago by Kevin Plank, who was a team captain at the University of Maryland, USA, and its headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland with addition offices located all around the globe.

The company basically develops and distributes branded sportswear and sport accessories such as sneakers, training jerseys, football uniforms, cold gears and coaching caps among other products. [ CITATION Har17 \l 2057 ]

VISION / MISSION STATEMENT

Under Armours vision statement is “To make all athletes better through passion design and relentless pursuit of innovation.”

Its Mission is “Under Armour makes you better”.

It is through the idea that was initiated by Kevin Plank, the founder of passion and relentless pursuit of innovation that keeps on driving the company forward till to date. The ideas at the very core and motive of the worker, athletes are able to be empowered by the products and continuously breaking the mold with every chance awarded to them. (Anagnostakis et al, 2015)

INTRODUCTION

In this report, we’re going to discuss what will be the marketing plan of Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018 Basketball Shoes. Under Armour has been selected on this report to discuss the marketing plan. Under Armour is an American multinational enterprise that majorly focuses on sportswear and accessories manufacturer. There heavily specialized in the general design, development, manufacturing and also marketing of their products globally. There are also associated with a various number of clubs and sports association all across the globe and also to deliver their certified products and services.

MARKETING OBJECTIVE

The company’s level of objectives needs to be attained. It all depends on the time set to achieve the set goal.

Short Term objective: the general prices of foot wares and apparel should be reduced by up to 5%. The reason being is to keep up with the competition of other big-name companies. By doing this we will be able to create brand awareness and generate new interest in quality products at a very cheap and affordable price in all financial classes.(Boone & Kurtz 2013).

Another objective that needs to be set is to increase the marketing budget. This will increase the online advertising budget substantially by 15% of the company benefits from online publicity. Reason being the company is lacking the name on the web to boost the sales of the company.

Long Term Objective: opening other subsidiaries. Opening other subsidiaries across the world in Africa, Asia and South America among other regions will help to increase the global brand awareness propelling Under Armour into the top tier of sporting companies.

DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW PRODUCT

The product has been carefully selected in order to be discussed in this report is Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018 Basketball Shoes. The product has been heavily approved by the customers and consumers more so the sportspersons, which in this field are the basketball players who favour the feature weighted shoes compared to the inflexible and hard shoes. Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018 Basketball Shoes are first released on the NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND in the year 2018. The shoes have been developed and manufactured with an elastic foot-hugging upper for the elevation of a basketball player while making their flight to the ring. (Anagnostakis et al., 2015)

Situation Analysis

Internal Factors:

Focusing on the structured, some of the workers may, on one hand, become insignificant in their own eyes due to their level and size of the company. This is because of the gauge the organisation and look at the probability of the product to hit on the market and promote the other product and services that are being offered by the organisation. This is an extraneous aspect of the organisation but plays a big role when it comes to the employees and the development of the organisation. (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010)

The organisation stability directly affects the mode of investment of the company success in the stock market with investors.

External Factors:

The economy plays a major role when it comes to the amount of business it receives. Both the income and the revenue are directly affected by the customers and the commodity they purchase.

Government regulation and taxes can play a major role in what is legal to sell and the expenditure that go to taxes.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths:

Most of the products and brand awareness are popular among athletics, colleges and high schools. Also, among some football club that approaches us to create their team’s jerseys. Also, on some sports franchise such as the NBA ALL STARS WEEKEND and the NBA PLAYOFFS and not only in basketball, but also the football such as the World Cup, netball, and volleyball (Anagnostakis et al., 2015).

Weakness:

Our product prices are higher than the competitive companies because of the effort that is made in the manufacture and development of the products that make it more heightened than the other companies. This leads to a narrow market focus of the commodity.

Opportunities

By simply making the prices cuts and shifting the target market to the sports people and franchise increase the probability of the products to be bought by customers. Also by increasing the marketing budget and constantly increasing the companies reach new market places around the globe (Grant, 2016). 

Threats:

With heavy taxation burden from the government pose a potential threat to the company. Alongside other company prices reduction may lead to the downfall of the product. Some are well known for a different company and some known for AU but if we lose some regions then the sales are going to decrease in profitability (Grant, 2016). 

MARKETING MIX STRATEGY

The overall objective of a marketing plan is to help elaborate how a product or service that is provided by the company is being promoted, priced and packaged for distribution to customers (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010). A proper marketing structured plan helps to identify the target customers for the products and the plan the launch of that proper accordingly minimize the cost unnecessarily and to have structured development and expansion of the organisation. There are several steps that need to be followed by Under Armour AU in order to have a proper marketing plan

Product

Under Armour has greatly specialized in sporting apparel for over years now. Some of their products include sporting hoodie, sink lets, sporting shoes, gloves and coaching caps among others. With the coming of Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018, it will increase the chances in which sportsmen buy the product from Under Armour hence increasing the profit of the organisation. This will not happen in a day or two days’ time, it will take time but in the long run, the product will be accepted with the mode in which the product is design developed and also distributed across the globe. (Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010)

Price

After outlining the strategies, Under Armour has to set a budget for the Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018 Basketball Shoes for the entire marketing and promotion part. Proper segmentation and implementation of the set-out budget will help to promote the brands properly, which will be the apple to the eye in the long run and increase the sales (Saputra, Waluyo & Listyorini, 2014)

Place

Under Armour is a domestic brand in the states, and its products are widely distributed across the globe. By focusing on the targeted customers and the places where the product should be launched according to the likes and dislikes of the people.

Promotion

By being given an online platform to work on, Under Armour needs to draft before launching the Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018 in the market place. Proper planning and strategy and their implementation will help the company to attain the competitive edge over their competitors. This will help them add more revenue to the organisation. It is very important to outline the company strategy in a proper direction since this is a very competitive world and every mistake will lead to a great loss of the company to face and loss its position to the market. (Anagnostakis et al., 2015)

Management

Business, in general, get major hit back and is affected by a certain number of external factors in the operation and not to forget the decision making.

Therefore, it is very essential from an organization’s point of view to identify the impacts of the external factors on the business environment so that it can adopt appropriate strategies and policies to reduce the impacts of the external factors on the operations of the business and also in the decision making part of the organization. The various external factors which are identified are political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal (William, Steve & Michael, 2017)

The organizational leaders and managers must also ensure that the policies and strategies of the organization must be ethical in nature and must not mislead society. In order to become an ethical organization, the company must adopt an ethical approach right from its grassroots and inceptions. Ethics plays a great role in the decision making the process of the organization as the decisions of the organizations which are taken is ethical in nature which aims to benefit itself also its stakeholders in the business (Porter, 2011). 

In the organization, the leader and manager’s main role is to follow proper ethics of work, behaviour and business so as to motivate the employee into working hard.

IMPLEMENTAION AND EVOLUTION PLAN

Under Armour has adequate capital and plenty of resources to brad aimed to greater income customer. The implementation strategy is staged into 9 different fields (Anagnostakis et al., 2015)

Stage 1:

A Brand name and logo are created no to forget the slogan under which the operation takes place. This is one of the major steps that needs to be undertaken in order for the product to be identifies with the brand. And at times it remains in the business for the life of the product. They all should be within the company vision and mission.

Stage 2:

In this place, outside designer collaborates with the designer team of Under Armour. With this distinctive and diverse team, they must be able to come up with distinctive massive apparel that will make the product to stand out ahead of the other competitive products of different brands.

Stage 3:

This will focus on the location where the product will be outsourced. The organisation should be able to meet the quality control firms and help the organisation to mitigate the risk association of manufactured products.

Stage 4

In this level, the organisation should modify the accommodation of the new product into the supply chain. The supply chain should be reliable, efficient and be able to meet the customer demands on the appropriate and adequate time that is needed.

Stage 5:

This is where the organisation finds adequate location where the product will be retailed and to target the customer. Brands are sold from high known income stores for interest and income.

Stage 6:

This is where a team of interior designers are layout for the store of the product. This is a focus on the layout of the store and a physical representation of the products. The design must be architectural luxurious and elegant.

Stage 7:

This stage will be the brand will be able to market the stage low-key by using the current marketing strategy and adopting various source of marketing.

Stage 8:

This is where training and hiring employees are brought and set to work at different retail locations. They must be trained on sales in order to assist the customer in a fruitful manner when choosing a product (Porter, 2011). 

Stage 9

This is the final stage of the plan. This happens only when the product has been sold successfully and another new product is being launched.

CONCLUSION

It can be said that Under Armour Grade School UA Jet 2018 Basketball Shoes is a super amazing product that can be made awesome and better by revisiting with a few minor adjustments. The marketing plan will help UA to make the product better with the help of improving technology. If at any case the future of the company strategy fails and it’s unable to lead the organisation forward towards a desired corporate objective then the company should focus on the current strategy and continue with its posture.

References