Protect This House

Ten years ago, the upstart sports brand trying to make the leap from disrupter to major player was No Fear. The company said it was creating a new category called "attitude apparel." Its shirts and hats featuring in-your-face slogans such as "Second place is the first loser" were all the rage among teenage boys. No Fear was fearless, expanding into the hypercompetitive shoe market and airing its first TV ad during the 1995 Super Bowl. Soon, though, Nike and other competitors came out with their own attitude apparel, while No Fear stumbled because of its limited distribution network. Before long, the company was reduced to a niche player, a motocross brand.

Most people out there are saying we're going to trip up at some point -- it's just a matter of when. Our job is to prove them wrong.

Plank is determined not to let that happen to Under Armour. "Most people out there are saying we're going to trip up at some point -- it's just a matter of when," he says. "Our job is to prove them wrong." The key to Under Armour's next growth spurt, he says, is winning over women -- no small feat for a company started by football players for football players. The ad on Oscars weekend is part of a delicate and complicated strategic shift: This supermacho brand doesn't want to alienate its core customers by offering something called the Power Thong for women. And there lies the fundamental test of a brand as it evolves. How do you stay true to your roots while simultaneously attracting a broader market?

So far, Under Armour has defied the odds. In a market considered impenetrable, says Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, "we have an interesting new battle on our hands."

Be Like Nike

Under Armour and Nike are the top sellers of performance apparel -- in that order. But that's just one category. In the grander scheme of things, Under Armour's annual revenue, more than $200 million last year, is practically a rounding error for the $13 billion Nike. David, meet Goliath.

Nike declined to comment on Under Armour. Its recent push for Nike Pro performance apparel, however, speaks volumes. The ads, aptly named "For Warriors," were one of its largest apparel campaigns ever. The budget, reportedly $30 million, exceeded Under Armour's ad spending for all of 2004.

It's enough to make a small company sweat. Unless, that is, you're Under Armour. The 450-employee staff exudes Plank's unwavering, understated confidence. The company got this far on smarts, hustle, and creativity: grassroots marketing, athlete-aided product development, a TV ad that became a phenomenon, a must-have logo, and a rabid following. Sound familiar? It should. Nike did practically the same thing.

Nike founder Phil Knight and Plank both started their companies shortly after college. Both were former athletes: Knight on the track, Plank on the gridiron. "When I first started, I believed every kid playing football would be wearing an Under Armour shirt in two years," he says. "I was a young punk who thought he knew everything." Plank was also a fast learner. After some of his University of Maryland teammates wore his shirts while playing on the lacrosse and baseball squads, he saw the product's broader potential. "I realized, I don't just have a product," he says. "I have a market."

Both entrepreneurs disrupted the industry by working under the radar at first to build a loyal following among athletes. Just as Knight sold shoes out of his trunk at track meets, Plank loaded up his Ford Explorer and visited locker rooms throughout the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in 1996. He befriended players as well as equipment managers. It didn't take long before the distinctive logo -- an overlapping U and A -- appeared in college and pro games, bowl games, the Super Bowl. Plank let his customers' needs drive product development; when they requested long sleeves or cold-weather clothes, he drove to New York's garment district and created them.

Plank is a natural-born entrepreneur. From the time he was a boy in Kensington, Maryland, he has run one enterprise or another. Shoveling snow. Mowing lawns. Delivering roses in college. If the football-shirt idea didn't take, he had a backup: catering crab cakes at pro-golf tournaments.

His innovation wasn't inventing the fabric. Nike and Adidas had already developed moisture-management fabrics. What he did was recognize the appeal of a compression undershirt and other forms of polyester-blend "base layer" apparel (even though it costs two to three times as much as its cotton counterparts). Because he was thoroughly outmanned, he had to do more with less. He recruited dozens of college and pro players as his unofficial marketers. "Try it," he told them, "and if you like it, give one to the guy with the locker next to you."