Blood, Sweat, and Storytelling
Under Armour’s Andy Donkin on building an emotional connection to your brand
Are you emotionally invested in your sneakers? It’s Andy Donkin’s job to ensure that when you suit up to work out, you choose Under Armour—and feel good about it. As the global chief marketing officer for the sports apparel and footwear company, Donkin (MBA’93) helped develop the “Make That Old” commercial for NBA star Stephen Curry’s signature sneaker. In 2016, Curry’s Golden State Warriors lost the NBA Finals, a disappointment that Under Armour incorporated into the commercial to associate the brand with determination. The result was an “engaging, honest, and dramatic spot that showed Stephen was up front about what happened, but was going to ‘make that old’ and work even harder,” says Donkin, who was previously head of worldwide brand and mass marketing for Amazon and was recently named one of the 50 most innovative CMOs in the world by Business Insider. If you want his job, you’ll need to:
Focus on the right details. “While many people dismiss focus groups, I find them insightful. Don’t look for yes or no answers to questions like ‘Do you like this product?’ Instead, listen to the consumers’ language to understand the why of what they’re saying. Pick up on patterns to find an insightful thread you can pull.”
Train with your team. “To understand how a fabric or shoe will perform in all conditions, we collaborate with product development and innovation teams to get feedback from lab tests. Test with your own employees and athletes before the product gets to market, then feed that information back into product development.”
Translate. “Working with the product, tech, and merchandising teams is a critical part of supporting the stories you want to tell. Marketing can also help you understand what about the product may not be living up to expectations. Consumers will tell you what they think, but then you have to be able to translate what they think to understand how the product connects to them.”
