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Under Armour
Under Armour is not a brand that does things by halves. their running gear is going down well in the sports industry, and now they're adding football boots to their rapidly-growing range. The boots - two lines, names Dominate and Create - look great and the company has spent time working with regular footballers, plus professionals like Bobby Zamora of Fulham, to perfect the product. Alex Chater explains...
SGB: Under Armour is a very 'American' brand in a lot of ways, so football boots are something of a diversion. Why do them?
Alex Chater: No. I think it's a natural extension when you look at, we introduced American football cleats in 2006 and came on and took 25% market share; the next season we introduced baseball cleats and lacrosse cleats, and with similar success; last year we launched training shoes; this past year we've launched running shoes. If we're going to be a growth brand, and we feel like we are the brand of the next generation, there's a tremendous amount of soccer players that have been asking us to develop a soccer boot, and at the same time we are a global brand, a lot of the players in Europe know us for our apparel, and it's a natural extension to bring that performance into our footwear.
SGB: What are the key USPs for the end user in the boots?
AC: We feel like we've got a point of difference with how we've treated underfoot and the performance and comfort and cushioning underfoot. We've done that with our Armour Bound EVA on top of the lasting board, a lot of people have just a very, very stiff lasting board without any cushioning. And then we have our Armour Form and our Armour Form sock liner which actually moulds to the bottom of your foot, allowing your foot to sit in the sock liner instead of on top of the sock liner, giving you a tremendous amount of extra stability. And then underneath the top layer that holds to your foot we have a very responsive material that allows for comfort and stud dispersion underfoot. And that's one thing that every player has said that has put on the boots, is that just the way they fit and they feel because of that underfoot comfort.
Our Dominate boot, which is our power meets tradition, or technology meets tradition shoe, we have a special technology in our leather, it's water-intelligent leather, and, much like our apparel is focussed on not allowing moisture, it's focussed on moisture wicking and ventilation.
