Some of Us Athletes Want Smaller Social Groups, Not Stadiums
I have a passion for athletics and social media, so immediately I was drawn to my morning email discussing Under Armour and digital social campaigns – my two loves coming together!
Under Armour unveiled its new “What’s Beautiful” digital experience and competition. At first blush, there are things I love but also things, based on our research, that either need to be tweaked or communicated more effectively. Which begs the question: Did they ask the all-important question, “Would you do this?”
The contest is being promoted via social media and being hosted on a microsite. The jist is that you upload a video announcing your fitness goal for the next 9 weeks, and then you complete a series of “challenges” that include additional videos or photos about your journey. Under Armour will choose the top 10 contestants as winners and then the final 3 (2 by the UA and 1 by the public) win “sponsorship” by UA. Here are some additional details .
Our research shows this campaign is perfect for a group of users that enjoy sharing their information with everyone, thrive on encouragement and have a deep desire to meet more people through social networks. For this group, Under Armour will have a significant following during this campaign.
But here’s the problem: our research also shows that, in social media, there are certain weight loss/athletic behavioral clusters, and the ways in which they interact with social media are very specific. I’m going to go in-depth with just 1 of them to explain and I chose this group because, well, it’s me!
These types of people would be willing to do a complex digital campaign around fitness and actually carry it out for an entire 9 week period, but the kicker is that they don’t want to share their experience on their own social media pages (Facebook account, Twitter account, etc.) Content that would get pushed out to “public” sites would not work for this group since you cast your experience out to everyone, contrary to their core behavior. For example, I would never share my Nike plus run out on Facebook. However, I’m open to a private online community that’s separated from a Facebook or Twitter account.
Frustratingly for me, I can’t tell if this fitness stuff goes to my Facebook profile when I update it or just the community. This is a big deal to this group of users that are like me! Simply telling me that it does and not giving me the option to disable – I don’t sign up. Telling me that it stays in this community – I’m in! In fact, adding a feature that allows me to create my own discreet community of friends would be highly compelling. Not only would I participate, but I would get my close group of friends to do so as well. We would want to give words of encouragement, but also trash talk each other! So by not telling me clearly who I am sharing with makes me scared and unwilling to participate.
Based on our research here at User Insight, I know there will be some users that will participate in the campaign. However, if they just tweaked a few words here or there because they know what their digital audience wants and needs in order to act; they would capture another segment entirely! Great idea? Yes. Missed opportunity? Also, yes.
