“It’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light.”

The idea is about showing Michael Phelps “going dark”—taking himself away from normal life and becoming invisible, both literally and metaphorically. This shows what it takes to become the greatest Olympian of all time: a lifetime of training single-mindedly, 24/7, in relentless pursuit of sporting greatness. - We use the power of Phelps to tell a personal story as he prepares for his last-ever Olympics.

On March 7th we released a video of Michael Phelps himself reacting to his Under Armour ad for the first time. As he and his fiancé watch, they are moved to tears by its emotional power. As the world noticed and word about the film started to spread, we launched the full spot the following day. This showed everything it takes to become the greatest Olympian of all time, as Phelps says a final farewell to a turbulent sporting love affair.

To launch the official film, we invited 40 different media to join the Global Media Summit at Under Armour’s Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. With Michael Phelps headlining the event, we unveiled the film for all alongside him. Media were able to meet and mingle with the athlete and even see him go through a workout regimen at the UA gym. The video then went on TV that night.

In 2016, Under Armour wanted to be at the heart of the conversation around this year’s biggest sporting event. We partnered with Michael Phelps to send a bigger brand message about its training philosophy.

The world had only positive reactions to Phelps’ final farewell campaign calling it “a masterpiece” and “a moving tribute”, and seeing Under Armour as a brand “taking it to another level”.

The campaign generated $14.9M in earned media value in the first week. As of date the film has amounted to 15 million+ views globally and earned 4.5+ billion earned campaign media impressions - 1.6+ billion of them in the first 24 hours that the film launched.