Under Armour is an athletic apparel manufacturer that has made great strides in the past decade to establish themselves as a leader in the market beside companies like Nike and Adidas. With athletic and celebrity endorsement ranging from football’s Tom Brady, to his wife and model Gisele Bundchen, to former wrestler and current actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, to the number one golfer in the world Jordan Spieth, Under Armour makes a point to have representatives at the top of their prospective fields wear the Under Armour logo.
That all starts with marketing and branding. In order to convince these celebrities to endorse the Under Armour product, the company must present a concerted and researched plan of how the celebrity will be represented in commercials, billboards, and magazine advertisements across the world. Before it is even guaranteed that the celebrity will endorse the product, Under Armour is hard at work coming up with strategies to boost the profile of both the celebrity and the company. Needless to say, when it comes time to make the pitch, it’s important to get the celebrity on board so as not to let all of that hard work go to waste. That means showing off a bit.
Located in a central open space at Under Armour’s global headquarters in Baltimore, MD, the company installed an 18-foot wide by 9-foot high Prysm video wall to serve as the focal point for campaign planning, brand messaging and VIP events. The interactive Prysm video wall provides an expansive 162 square foot digital canvas that combines video, live feeds and sports imagery. The easy-to-use touch interface of the Prysm video wall allows users to interact with any content on screen that can be resized, repositioned and annotated. The beautiful resolution and colors of the screen itself mixed with the ease-of-use of the Synthesis software that runs the system allows Under Armour employees a dynamic and interactive way to pitch to the potential clients that come to the company headquarters.
Under Armour hired the Sextant Group to come in and do a complete design for the overhaul of the corporate offices, which are in two buildings on its campus. The Sextant Group worked with Whiting-Turner, the general contractor responsible for the renovation of the two buildings. The AV specifications went out to bid to several AV integrators, and Avitecture was chosen to install the Prysm video wall and surrounding audio system.
“The Prysm wall is a showpiece that’s on the third floor of the building, and it’s basically out in an open lobby,” says Bruce Pittman, VP of Sales and Marketing for Avitecture. “There’s a complete audio system that goes with the Prysm video wall that is probably just as impressive as the wall itself. Then there are three Adobe suites that Under Armour uses for the development of the content that goes up on the Prysm wall.”
Before running through the Adobe suites, content goes to a small auditorium called a press screening room, with a 98-inch Planar display screen within. The content is viewed on this screen, then verified and accepted before being routed to the Prysm video wall in the lobby. The boardroom and executive conference room also have the capability to view what will eventually go onto the Prysm video wall, making the Prysm wall the final destination in a long line of content checks and balances before being presented to potential endorsers.
“When Under Armour is courting a new client, they develop a complete array of material that’s then presented on the video wall,” says Bill Apter, special projects consultant for Avitecture. “It’s extremely aggressive. It’s also impressive to the Nth degree. Bruce and I have been doing video walls for a long time, and I’ll tell you, the images that come up on this wall will blow away the most veteran AV person around. It’s all in the development that under Armour puts into this before it gets to the video wall.”
Avitecture was working under severe time constraints, and had to work on the wall while construction was underway. The company had to fabricate a plastic tent over the work area to keep away dust and debris, and over a dozen employees were working on the project at any one time. Avitecture completed first the Adobe suites, installing a Crestron Digital Media System that allows content to be sent through the suites, screening room, boardrooms and video wall. The sound system involves K-Array sound bars on both sides of the wall and K-Array sound arrays in the ceiling that pump sound throughout the entire lobby space.
“When they go to the wall it’s a presentation piece,” says Apter. “That’s what these other rooms are for, is so that you can make the changes, view what it’s going to do, and then go and do the actual presentation on the Prysm video wall. They generally will have a large video running on the center of the wall, then they’ll have other videos and still advertisements around it. Then they can grab the big video, flip it to one side, grab another image and it will automatically grow to fill the space. So they’re constantly moving content around the wall as part of their presentation.”
“Under Armour was extremely happy with it,” says Pettiman.
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