Under Armour has appointed Sparro by Brainlabs to manage its paid digital media, above-the-line media, SEO, and affiliate marketing.
The global sports apparel, footwear, and accessories brand was founded in 1996 and its innovative products and experiences are engineered to make athletes better and designed to empower human performance.
Priscilla Larke, head of marketing at Under Armour, said: “We’re really excited about our partnership with Sparro. Together, we’re chasing the next generation of athletes and sports enthusiasts. Our agencies and their capabilities now reflect our own ambitions, capability and performance focus.”
“We were really impressed with Sparro’s digital-first approach, balanced with their above-the-line capabilities,” said Larke.
“Our customers are finding products and inspiration beyond professional athletes, both online and through emerging platforms. Sparro is finding media solutions that allow Under Armour to meet our audience wherever they are.”
Cameron Bryant, co-founder of Sparro by Brainlabs, said there was an alignment of values between brand and agency which played an instrumental part of the pitching process.
“Under Armour is the kind of brand we love working with: an ambitious challenger with a respected name that’s ready to go all-in on digital,” said Bryant. “Our teams immediately connected over our values of thinking differently and growing together — and the work we’ve already started together across multiple channels has reflected that.”
Bryant said the independent digital marketing agency has been evolving itself from a pure-performance agency into a full-funnel media buyer over the last five years.
“While we’ve been known for our paid digital media and SEO for over a decade, we’ve always been pushing ourselves to anticipate what our clients will need next. We started building our data science team in 2019, expanded into creative and production with our acquisition of Jack Nimble in 2021, focused on building our affiliate team since 2022, and have been expanding our above-the-line media planning capability since early 2023.”
He added: “We’ve always grown to meet the future needs of our clients and have seen the writing on the wall for years that brands want to consolidate agencies. We’ve made multiple rounds of new hires, built new teams, and expanded our service model to the point that we can now call ourselves full-service.”