Nike vs. Under Armour The race for first place. Brandon Halverson Ted Gournelos COM100 Intro To Communication

Topic: Social Media and Web Presence Impact on Advertising. Focus: Performance Apparel Case Study: An examination of Nike’s Web and Social Media Strategies as compared to Under Armour

Literature Nike’s Primary appeals:  Invests more in advertising than in manufacturing or other physical assets (Carducci 2009, 43)  Narratives serve as a vessel for Nike to be a living entity (Grow 2008, 337)  Feminist movement to “Just do it” by empowering women (Grow 2008, 314) Under Armour’s appeals:  Word of Mouth advertising is a powerful proponent to success. i.e. post-game interviews (Kraft and Lee 2009)  Quality of Materials means a lot to CEO Kevin Plank (Brewer 2009, 354)

Coded for: Number of Posts, Videos [Visually there], Images, Copy Only, Hashtags, Website uses, Followers, Following, Athlete, Female visible, Male visible, Twitter Presence [i.e. Nike Running, Under Armour Football]. Methodology: : Content Analysis Sample: 1 month of Tweets by each respective brand’s official Twitter. Textual Analysis conducted on both official web pages: Nike.com & Underarmour.com.

Methodology: Content Analysis Results: Textual Analysis Revealed that:  Nike utilized more celebrities and focused on female empowerment. Title screen focused on exchange value.  Under Armour focused on females training to be more beautiful. Title screen focused on innovation.

Discussion Through a textual analysis of Nike and Under Armour’s official websites as well as conducting a content analysis of both companies Twitter accounts I conclude that: Nike has a firm association with female empowerment Under Armour relies on its Word-of-Mouth Strategy Nike has a broader social network presence, yet a less dense presence on its main outlet. Proving it is more personalized. Under Armour relies on their relationship with their publics, densely populating their main social media outlet with images connecting to the use of their products.

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