A brand built on the locker room

Under Armour started in 1996 with a founder who hated sweat-soaked cotton shirts under his football pads and made a better one in his grandmother’s basement. Thirty years on, the brand still thinks like a locker room: effort, discipline, the idea that you earn the right to perform. When Under Armour brings its management together, a hotel conference room would be a betrayal of all of that. Armour Day had to feel like the sport.

Armour Day: the stage in the park during the training sessions

Edition one, edition two

We created and delivered two editions of Armour Day, Under Armour’s global management event. The first established the format: a day for managers built around sport rather than around sitting. The second went further. The whole event was themed around Under Armour’s American football line, and the mission was printed on everything: Become a Football Player.

That meant a programme that moved the way a training camp moves, from warm-up to competition to the moment the team comes together. Appearances by heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua and Nicole Holliday gave the day its star power and, more importantly, its credibility. When an elite athlete tells a room of managers what the mindset actually feels like, the theme stops being a slogan.

Armour Day: on stage with the host

Immersion is a production job

Immersive is an easy word and a hard discipline. Every element of the day had to stay inside the theme, from the way guests were welcomed to the rhythm of the programme. One generic hotel moment and the spell is broken. Our role was to design that world and then run it invisibly: the schedules, the technical production, the timing that made a packed day feel effortless. White-label, as always, so that the day belonged entirely to Under Armour.

What we took from it

The best management events have a point of view. Armour Day did not ask managers to think about performance; it made them perform, and then talked about it. That is the format we recommend to any brand whose culture is physical: pick the sport, commit to the theme completely, and bring in people who have lived it.

Insider notes

Sport and vitality formats like this work for groups from thirty to several hundred, indoors or out, and they travel well across countries. The Netherlands has exceptional sports venues within an hour of Schiphol, many of them used to hosting international teams. Give us the theme and the guest list; we will find the field.