Director of Global Expansion Team
Terran Potor started out at Under Armour in 2004 as a customer account specialist. Throughout the years, she has grown with the company and is now the Director of the Global Expansion Team. Terran has helped Under Armour expand to 90 countries with 350+ stores. Two things that I found particularly interesting about Terran’s presentation were the company’s global product expansion and its market expansion into China.
First, unlike the other sportswear companies, Under Armour started out as an apparel company and moved into the footwear industry later. It was very interesting to me that the company would choose soccer cleats to be the first type of shoe that they produced. On possible reason for this strategic move is that Under Armour has built its identity around football. So, while football players don’t always wear cleats, they might need to do so depending on the field type (grass vs. artificial turf).
This is in line with Under Armour’s decision for their second type of shoe: training shoes. When Under Armour came out with their training shoes, it was still before the cross-fit trend. The company probably oriented themselves toward that type of shoe because their competitors were not there yet. Under Armour’s main strategy seems to be competition by differentiation. At the time, Nike was mostly known for its running shoes. By targeting the niche of cleats and training shoes, Under Armour was hoping to start a relationship with consumers first in order to build brand loyalty. Moreover, the company may have done some market research to foresee the cross-fit trend. By being the first on the market, Under Armour has the first-mover advantage. Additionally, the company has some breathing room to create an upgraded next generation while the competitors are scrambling to release their first cross-fit shoe to meet the trend.
Next, Under Armour’s expansion into China was rather fascinating. China has a very particular culture and way of life. While their GDP is quite low compared to American standards, Chinese citizens idolize the American culture. Their social status depends on the clothes they wear and the restaurants and coffee shops that they hang out in (among other things). Since they live in a collectivist society, they are very concerned with maintaining a positive social status. For this reason, Chinese people tend to be in the know of all of the American celebrity gossip. Noticing this attribute of the Chinese market, Under Armour leveraged their promotion contracts with American athletes to raise brand awareness in China. Because Stephen Curry is very popular in China, the company has done several promotional tours with him in China. (It has also done promotional tours with Jordan Spieth in South Korea, as they have a similar culture dynamic as the Chinese people but are more interested in golf than basketball.) As an international marketing major, I was very intrigued at this pop culture overlap.
In a similar manner, besides its marketing plan, Under Armour’s distribution into China has been very cost effective as well. They first set up a “partner-owned” store (think franchise store) in Shanghai. They were planning to simply sit back and see how it performed. Yet, before they knew it, 50% of their worldwide stores were in China. What’s interesting to note here is that while 50% of stores are in China, only around 22% of sales is from outside US and Canada. This can be explained by the fact that US stores are rather large. Chinese “stores” on the other hand might be slightly larger than a kiosk type thing. Think about the large duty free stores in airports; while it looks like one large store, there are actually several brands with their own check-out counter. Because Under Amour noticed that this is the type of shopping environment in China, they adapted their stores to fit that environment.
Overall, it was very interesting to learn how Under Armour has adapted its product and market expansion around the world to fit the needs and wants of the target audience.