‘It’s what you do in the dark, that puts you in the light’

The idea was about ‘going dark’ and becoming invisible both literally and metaphorically – We aimed to tell the story of the 2016 USA Gymnastics team and show how this tribe of normal young women step away from other aspects of their daily life to focus on training, single-mindedly, 24/7, in relentless pursuit of sporting greatness.

On February 23rd, we launched a :90 film that shows the impressive strength and impossible physical ability of the USA Women’s Gymnastics Team, building a breathless sense of repetition. We show the girls working on full-body strength, skill and ability training on the mat, traveling to competitions, living and breathing their sport, over and over again. The film leads to the line “It’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light,” underpinning Under Armour’s broader “Rule Yourself” campaign.

The film was supported globally on television, cinema, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Under Armour retail- environments —all just months before the Olympic games.

The launch of our film on February 23rd sparked a conversation in the sport of gymnastics, which carried itself into a broader conversation around strength, personal dedication and empowerment. With limited paid media, to date the work has garnered over 7 billion global media impressions and over 14 million views across Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. More importantly, fans and followers were engaged in the story, leaving it with with 110,000 likes and over 33,000 shares to their network.

The campaign will continue into Summer 2016, when the final direct impact on business targets will be measured.

Under Armour needed an advert with a music track that would rally a nation behind the 2016 USA Women’s Gymnastics Team. The track that was chosen—M.I.A.’s “Matangi”—got the world talking (sending the ad viral), inspired female athletes worldwide and put fear in the hearts of competing countries. The way the track and the visuals worked together truly helped reinforce the sheer strength, power and dedication of the nation’s most loved sports team.

The first chapter of "Rule Yourself" introduced the idea of consistency as the key to success. We needed this next phase to add a new dimension to consistency.

We spoke to elite athletes, trainers and coaches, and uncovered a truth about training: you can undo all the progress you make in the gym with what you do outside of the gym. To be a great athlete, you cannot approach training simply as what you do in the gym—you need to approach training as a 24/7 lifestyle. This is an everyday consistency, where the ways athletes live, eat, sleep and recover are all essential elements that contribute to their training. We spoke with young high-school athletes, and found that they also believed they had to adopt this 24/7 training approach to get to the next level.

We realized that 24/7 training is even more important to Olympic athletes as they train

In Spring 2015, we set a course to develop a fresh and bold position that separated Under Armour from the sea of sameness in the rest of the training category. The result was “Rule Yourself”—a training platform that captured the disciplined mindset of elite athletes.

To continue making progress in the category through 2016, we had one goal in mind—demonstrate how the greatest athletes dedicate their entire life, 24/7, to train as they head into competition. Under Armour wanted to champion its partnership with Michael Phelps by showcasing the true dedication he has in preparation for his last Olympics.

In doing so, we aimed to achieve the following:

Increase global brand awareness with 14–18-year-old high-school athletes

Surpass effectiveness through views, shares, comments and PR reach, using the first round of “Rule Yourself” as a benchmark