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Athletic Opps: HanesBrands launches Champion campaign amid media review (Score 6)

Athleticwear brand Energy BBDO, "Be Your Own" made its debut on ESPN during the Ohio State vs. Notre Dame football game on September 3. It will also run on linear TV, online & streaming video, in-store displays and Champion's social media platforms. 

Champion is also working to establish partnerships with Disney and an upscale street fashion retailer, Social Status, with which it will work to design an HBCU capsule line. Champion additionally showed up in a challenge on Amazon Prime's reality fashion competition series, Making the Cut. This appearance resulted in strong online sales for both Amazon and Champion, according to the brand's global brand marketing VP, John Shumate.

The brand also recently expanded its partnership with the Premier Lacrosse League. This partnership now includes the uniforms worn by players during games. Champion will continue working with (championing, one might say) high schools and small college athletic programs. The brand will additionally launch a page soon for merchandise designed exclusively for its college and university partners.

Since the beginning of 2022, iSpot reports that Champion has allocated roughly $800.6k toward national TV commercials, a huge increase from the roughly $7.3k allocated within the same 2021 timeframe. The brand did not utilize this channel after this point last year, and it allocated roughly $4.5k toward this channel in 2020. Champion's 2022 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as Women's College Basketball, The 2022 ESPYS, NBA Basketball, SportsCenter and WNBA Basketball.

According to Pathmatics, the brand has spent approximately $2.9m on digital ads YTD, less than a third of the approximately $9.4m spent by this point last year. In 2021, Champion's estimated full-year spend of $17.9m reached almost 6x that of $3.4m in 2020. So far this year, the brand has earned ~328.2m digital impressions via Instagram (46%), Facebook (31%), desktop display (14%), mobile display (4%), desktop video (3%) and mobile video (2%) ads.

As I briefly mentioned, this new campaign targets Gen-Z, specifically those A14-24, along with millennials, per VP Shumate. Its target demographic also has a male skew; however, as you can tell by the video above, it's also targeting women. To reach younger, digitally-oriented audiences even more effectively, the brand will likely return to heavier digital spend soon; in the meantime, Champion may be focused more on other digital channels such as the aforementioned linear TV, online and streaming video channels. The brand may make future forays into additional digital channels such as TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, the metaverse and/or podcast. Champion holds planning conversations in Q1 and buying conversations in Q4. It will probably continue pursuing partnership and sponsorship opportunities.

Agency & martech readers - Parent company here.