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Kevin Plank's Under Armour

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Under Armour (UA) was founded by a then 23-year old football player from the University of Maryland in 1996 named Kevin Plank. Kevin started the company from his grandmother’s basement in Washington, D.C. As a player he became tired of having to change his undershirts which became quickly soaked with perspiration. A revelation he made was that his compression shorts worn during practice remained dry even with heavy sweating. This inspired him to make a t-shirt using moisture-wicking synthetic fabric. After graduating, Plank developed his first prototype of the shirt, which he gave to his Maryland teammates and friends who had gone on to play in the NFL. He soon perfected the design of the shirt which utilized microfibers that quickly wicked …show more content…

In its earlier years UA expanded significantly with new product lines including TurfGear, AllseasonGear, and StreetGear. These launches success helped to catapult UA to the forefront of the emerging performance apparel industry. Their innovation and savvy have given them a leg up on competitors including Nike and Addidas. There have been hints of some new product launches to come in 2017. UA wants to continue to be a competitive player in the health and fitness gadget and wearables market. These gadgets include “Healthbox”, a fitness tracker with a heart-rate strap and smart scale. These devices are intended to be used with their smartphone app, which is also compatible with other fitness tracking devices. Later on, the company added heart rate monitoring headphones to the family of devices, as well as the Speedform Gemini 2 RE smart running shoes which have a built in ability to track your runs (Jovin, 2016). This healthbox product has not received a grand reception from consumers but there is a lot of potential for this product line. For the sake of the report I will research and report on a product line that recently came out. The ColdGear product line. These clothing items claims to disseminate heat by using ceramic powder and re-circulates around the wearers

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