Under Armour has teamed up with Heated Rivalry star François Arnaud to remind athletes that its HeatGear performance wear can help them push through the hottest stretch of summer.
Its latest campaign, “For When It’s Hot,” announces Arnaud as Under Armour’s new global brand ambassador. The actor’s Heated Rivalry character, Scott Hunter, organically wore Under Armour apparel during the show’s first season, which inspired the brand partnership.
The ad opens on a bright sky with a cloud in the shape of the Under Armour logo, then tilts down to a sweltering Southern California neighborhood as a weather report warns of a “sudden heat wave.”
Arnaud is first introduced by his physique alone, before slipping on a white Under Armour shirt reminiscent of the one his character wore on the show. He starts an intense workout in his garage gym as neighbors stop to watch. The spot ends with him taking off his sweat-drenched shirt.
The campaign will run across Under Armour’s social channels, including Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Arnaud isn’t the only Heated Rivalry star capitalizing on the show’s popularity. Connor Storrie, who plays Ilya Rozanov, recently starred in a Verizon campaign.
Marketing as storytelling
Under Armour wanted the ad to feel less like a clothing commercial and more like a scene taken from a larger narrative. Arnaud plays a character so distracting to his neighbors that one man can’t finish washing his car, while a jogger runs into trash cans.
According to Tyler Rutstein, SVP of global and Americas marketing at Under Armour, the comedic, narrative approach falls under one of the company’s four marketing principles, “Have Fun: Performance & Personality.”
“We try to capture that in all the storytelling we do and how we show up at retail,” Rutstein told ADWEEK. “HeatGear is our founding product, and foundational copy historically has been ‘for when it’s hot.’ As we brought Francois’ own self-expression to this campaign from his fitness regimen to his character on screen, we thought this blended those two aspects creatively in such a fun, authentic way.
