Haley White

MEJO 379
Survey Assignment
November 14, 2017

RQ: Why does Under Armour struggle to reach the success of its top competitors?

Insight 1A: Fitting the mold

Individuals would rather wear athletic apparel that helps them fit in with the rest of
society instead of purchasing original athletic-wear that would make them standout. Aspects of
clothing that do not matter very much to individuals are interesting pattern or color, and better
performance. The overall lack of desire to have athletic apparel with interesting patterns or
colors is just one example of why most people would rather purchase athletic apparel that helps
them fit in.
Based on the quantitative data collected, one can infer that individuals who purchase
athletic apparel are more interested in fitting in with others than they are finding athletic apparel
that makes them standout in society. Question 8, How important is it that your athletic clothing
provide the following, presented respondents with multiple categories to choose from on a scale
of Not Important to Important. With a mean of 4.19, it is evident that individuals value
overall look because it is a very general category. In other words, the question is external in
that more people can relate to wanting a good overall look than they can with something like
trendiness or originality. The overall look mean is only slightly below comfort. Based
on this, one can conclude that individuals only want to be comfortable in something that looks
good, while also failing to admit that they want that good-looking piece of clothing to be unique,
trendy or original.
Meanwhile, the trendiness mean is 3.69 and originality has a relatively low mean of
2.68. Trendiness falls somewhere in the middle because people do not like to admit that they are
trendy, even when they are actually trendy or unique. In other words, individuals would rather fit
the mold instead of admit that they are trendy. Lastly, the originality has a low mean because it
even further tests an individuals uniqueness. It is significantly more specific than overall look,
and slightly more specific than trendy. It is evident that the more specific these qualities of
athletic apparel got, the less important individuals found them because they would rather fit in
with society.
Again, we see a difference in importance for functional qualities such as durability and
moisture-absorbability due to one being general and the other being a more specific function.
Durability carries a mean score of 4.47 with a standard deviation of 0.77, while moisture-
absorbability carries a mean score of 3.63 and a standard deviation of 1.14. Not only is durability
important as revealed by the mean score, but almost everyone agrees that durability is an
important quality of athletic clothing. This low standard deviation reveals that individuals
selected about the same level of importance for durability as the mean, on average, which was
between moderately important and important. At the same time, moisture-absorbability has a
high standard deviation and a lower mean than durability. The higher standard deviation reveals
that there were many people who felt that moisture-absorbability is either not important or
somewhat important, while another segment felt that moisture-absorbability is moderately
important or important. In others words, it is a type of feature that will work for some people and
will not work for others. The different levels of importance among these two categories reveals
that most individuals prefer to fit the standard of normal clothing by choosing features that are
more general, such as durability, than features that are more specific, such as moisture-
absorbability
Even though we have overall low mean scores for features such as moisture-
absorbability, trendiness and originality, if we were advising Under Armour, we do have results
that breakdown the segmentation of people who do not value these features and those who say
these features are important to them. Considering this dataset would be valuable for Under
Armour as a way for them to target specific markets of people for a campaign that could reach
individuals who would rather standout by prioritizing these aspects of clothing that are not
popular among the majority of people.
We also see this concept of wanting to fit in when we asked respondents to rate the
accuracy of the statement, I am more likely to purchase athletic-wear from a well-known
brand, on a scale of Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. About 29% of respondents said
that they strongly agree, while about 34% said that they agree with the statement. There is
also a mean of 2.28, which on this scale means that the average opinion of respondents is
somewhere between somewhat agreeing and agreeing with the statement. By being more likely
to purchase athletic-wear from a well-known brand, one can deduct from the data that
individuals lack desire to be original by not wanting to purchase from unknown or lesser-known
brands that produce more original clothing. Instead, people prefer to fit in with the status quo by
purchasing from brands that are well-known to a majority of individuals.
The influences social media has on decision-making also plays a role in ones desire to fit
in with the majority. When we asked, Where did you first learn about athleisure, about 60% of
respondents said that they learned about athleisure from either social media (28%) or from their
friends (28%). Now, it is important to recognize the overlap and redundancy between these two
categories. One can learn about something from a friend on social media, making it so these two
categories are somewhat interchangeable. For Under Armour, this is a weakness. Individuals do
not think about Under Armour when they think of an athletic brand, as proven in my Focus
Group assignment where Under Armour was not mentioned until I (the questioner) brought it up
to the group. Therefore, lack of social influence has been bad for Under Armour since they are
not running a socially dynamic campaign. Respondents in this group are driven by social aspects,
whether its fitting in with society or being prominently informed by social media. It is important
that Under Armour takes this into consideration when creating a new campaign, and that they are
targeting the right people through the right media outlet.

Insight 1B: Risk as uniqueness

Individuals who work out frequently are more likely to take risks in their clothing choices
by choosing more unique looks, whereas those who either never work out or who work out a few
times a month would father fit the mold to simply be comfortable and look athletic.
In order to obtain this insight, I filtered question 13 In a given month, about how often
do you exercise? to either show answers of only those who said they never exercise and that
they exercise a few times a month, or to show answers of individuals who said they exercise
6-7 days a week. I then examined question 8, How important is it that your athletic clothing
provides the following? Out of 78 respondents, only 4 said that they workout 6-7 days a week,
making them an outlier when it comes to how often the majority of people workout. According
to the data that tells us a majority of people do not work out 6-7 days a week, I consider that
frequency unique. Findings revealed that individuals who work out 6-7 days a week are more
likely to prioritize originality in their clothing than the 28 respondents who said that they either
never workout or only workout a few times a month. The dataset from respondents who work out
6-7 days a week produced a mean of 3.5 on a scale of Not Important to Important when
it comes to the importance of athletic-wear providing originality. Meanwhile, individuals who
never work out or who work out a few times a month provide a mean of 2.75 in the
importance of originality when it comes to athletic-wear. Those who dont work out because
this is about athleisure they might be buying it for functionality versus those who work out
often really mean that they need this work out apparel. The difference in mean scores indicate
that individuals who exercise 6-7 times a week value originality more than those who either
never work out or who work out a few times a week. This is positively correlated with the
uniqueness among the fact that 4 out of 78 individuals exercise 6-7 times a week.
There is also a difference in the desire to purchase athletic-clothing that provides specific
functions. For example, those who exercise 6-7 days a week said that they value functional
qualities such as durability, moisture-absorbability, and air-flow based on high mean scores. At
the same time, all three have relatively low standard deviations. These high means and low
standard deviations are indicative of the fact that individuals who exercise frequently value
function. Meanwhile, those who never exercise or exercise a few times a month do not value
functional qualities such as durability with a mean of 4.46 and a standard deviation of 0.82;
moisture-absorbability with a mean of 3.61 and a standard deviation of 1.05; function with a
mean of 4.39 and a standard deviation of 0.72; and air flow with a mean of 3.82 and a standard
deviation of 1. The higher standard deviations are indicative of different segments of individuals
who believe functional qualities such as moisture-absorbability are either not important or
somewhat important, while another segment of those who do not frequently exercise felt that
functional qualities are moderately important or important. Both groups do display a high mean
when it comes to comfort, but for different reasons. Those who exercise 6-7 days a week value
comfort purely because they are doing more strenuous activities, as revealed by question 14.
Those who either never exercise or only exercise a few times a month value comfort, but are
more interested in fitting in. They purchase comfortable clothing because it is comfortable and it
does not standout.
An interesting finding among the group who exercises 6-7 times a week was that a
majority of the qualities carried low standard deviations. These low standard deviations with
the exception of the standard deviation of the importance of better performance reveal that
there are a lot of similarities between the niche group that it those who work out often. The fact
that they are all very similar and highly targeted makes them an extremely strong group because
the findings are so consolidated that a company would know exactly what they want in their
clothing. This would allow Under Armour to create a campaign that would work as long as it
remains specific in focusing on aspects such as function and originality for this niche of
individuals.
While individuals who exercise frequently are considered unique and prefer originality in
their athletic-wear and lifestyle, those who do not work out frequently value fitting in as revealed
by both their lack of desire to purchase original athletic-wear and their choice in exercise
activity. Similar to Insight 1A, we see that there is a need to fit in with society. The difference
here is, however, that when an individual displays unique behaviors, he or she is more likely to
also display unique behaviors when it comes to picking their workout apparel and the types of
exercises. If Under Armour is going to create a campaign, it is important that they do so knowing
that those who frequently work out value originality and uniqueness more than those who barely
work out. In the case of our survey, I would advise Under Armour to find a different target
market than those who we surveyed because our respondents are more interested in being classy
and wearing higher-end clothing than they are hearing about the functionality of the athletic-
wear. If they decide not to choose a different market, then they must create a campaign that is
socially driven about conforming to what everyone else is wearing. Based on our data, I found
that the majority of our respondents value fitting in with societal norms more than they do being
original with the functions and styles of the clothing.

Limitations
Though I believe that the flow of our survey was well-done, some of the questions that
we asked could have either been worded different, omitted, or put on a scale. Due to a limited
demographic, we were also unable to target out niche group that would allow Under Armour to
use a condensed set of data to create a campaign specific to individuals how exercise frequently.

Get rid of questions that do not matter

Immediately after analyzing the data, we realized that there was no sense in wasting
survey takers precious time asking them to answer a question that we knew would not help us.
Specifically, in knowing that the majority of the population who took our survey would be
students who we knew were not athletes, we should have omitted question 10: Are you a
collegiate athlete? We did not receive any responses from individuals who were athletes, and
even if we did I found that that specific information would not have been relevant to answering
our research question. So, omitting the question all together would have been in our best interest
in terms of avoiding any irrelevant data and saving our respondents time.

Nominal questions that lacked potential insight

In structuring our questions, we did not optimize the opportunity to gain potential insight
on why individuals in general do no purchase Under Armour over their competitors such as
Nike.
Specifically, we asked a nominal question that had no density of range in terms of how
many items of a specific brand an individual owns. For example, question 5, What brand(s) of
athletic-wear do you own? Check all that apply, was asked in a format that does not allow one
to specify how many of each brand he or she owns. Not only that, but we were unable to quantify
the data to give it a mean score or standard deviation. We found that this created a problem when
analyzing the data as it caused us to lose a segmentation of people. Instead, we should have
asked a scalar question such as, How likely are you to purchase an article of clothing from this
brand? The answers would range from Not at all likely to Moderately likely to Very
likely, and we would provide an option that allowed someone to say that they already own that
particular brand of clothing. In doing so, we give ourselves a better range of data to differentiate
one customer from another and we give ourselves the opportunity to create a rich insight based
on different segmentations.

Change in Logic
One of the logic filters that directed respondents to a specific question based on their
previous answer limited the amount and variety of responses we received, and also took away
from our ability to spot and insight in terms of why people who do not own Under Armour
choose not to purchase the brand.
Question 6 asks, How satisfied are you with the quality of Under Armour clothing? In
order to see question 6, a respondent must have answered that they own Under Armour in the
previous question, What brand(s) of athletic-wear do you own? Check all that apply. While
analyzing our data, my group came to the conclusion that it would have been in our best interest
to allow every respondent to answer question 6, instead of having only those who own Under
Armour answer it. The deletion of the logic filter omitted the opportunity for individuals who do
not own Under Armour to let us know how they feel about the brand. In turn, we lost potential
insight on why people are not buying Under Armour and instead choose to purchase from
competitors such as Nike and Adidas.

Finding the right market

While our findings were limited as a result of the specific demographic, we also realized
that it would have been of most value to analyze data from the market of individuals who
exercise very frequently.
Based on the data that we collected and examined, we determined that the market of
individuals who frequently exercise is a very big pool. Under Armour might want to know more
about this niche market of people who work out often to create a campaign that is tailored to
individuals who are most likely to purchase athletic-wear. By targeting this market, Under
Armour delves into a large pool of individuals who have very similar and specific tastes to one
another when it comes to types of work outs and what they look for in their athletic-wear.
Tapping into that market would be essential to Under Armour building that relationship with the
customers who use work out clothing for the specific purpose of getting exercise. I would have
liked to have had more people in that niche market respond to our survey in order to find out a
way to sell them more athletic gear from Under Armour.