On March 13, 2024, local time, American sports brand Under Armour announced that its CEO Stephanie Linnartz will step down, and brand founder and chairman Kevin Plank will be re appointed as brand CEO. The appointment will take effect from April 1st.
In February 2023, Stephanie Linnartz was appointed as the CEO of Andma. When the news of Kevin Plank's return to the position of brand CEO was released, she had only been in this position for a full year.
Before arriving at Andmar, Stephanie Linnartz had almost no experience in the sportswear industry, but at that time, the brand recognized her "outstanding ability in digital transformation and online business" - during Stephanie Linnartz's tenure as President of Marriott International, the number of Marriott hotel member loyalty programs increased to 170 million.
However, Stephanie Linnartz's addition does not seem to have helped Andmar much: in the 2023 fiscal year, Andmar's sales only slightly increased by 3% year-on-year to $5.9 billion (approximately RMB 41.893 billion). By category, apart from a 16% increase in revenue from footwear products to $1.5 billion, sales in all other categories of Andemar have declined: revenue from clothing products decreased by 1% to $3.9 billion, and revenue from accessories products decreased by 7% to $409 million.
Interestingly, the market seems to be eagerly anticipating Kevin Plank's return. After the announcement of this appointment, Andemar's stock price surged nearly 4% to $7.78 after trading.
Unlike Stephanie Linnartz, Kevin Plank is a businessman from the sports industry: in 1996, Kevin Plank, a former Maryland rugby star, founded Andma. Due to the brand's lightweight and ability to keep the sportswear dry during intense exercise, Andma's name quickly spread in the market.
In 2005, Andemar, which had only been established for 9 years, conducted its initial public offering. In 2006, Andma, along with Nike and Reebok, became the three official shoe manufacturers of NFL.
Kevin Plank is a very insightful businessman who comes from an athlete's background and is well aware of the pain points of sportswear in the 1990s. Therefore, in the early stages of brand development, he signaled the team to fully focus on "professional sportswear", abandoning cotton materials and using materials such as polyester and nylon for all products.
His decision made Andrma's sportswear stand out from other products on the market, quickly standing out in the fiercely competitive sports footwear and apparel market.
However, this style of behavior has also led Kevin Plank into controversy over being too arbitrary and overbearing. In 2015, despite public dissatisfaction from some executives and employees, Kevin Plank still spent $1 billion to acquire multiple digital fitness platforms such as MapMyFitness. However, subsequent numbers have shown that this investment behavior did not bring much profit to the company.
Meanwhile, Kevin Plank has also sold non voting C-class stocks multiple times, cashing out large amounts without sacrificing voting rights. In June 2023, the founder sold approximately 16 million shares worth $100 million of Andemar C-class stocks, causing panic among many investors.
In 2017, Andema experienced its first quarterly loss. In the same year, Kevin Plank stepped down under pressure and handed over both the positions of CEO and President to Patrick Frick, who had previously worked as a professional manager at the footwear company The Aldo Group.
This was a huge turning point for Andma, which meant that the company was no longer Kevin Plank's "one man" and entered a "decentralized" era: the appointment announcement at the time showed that after Patrick Frisk took office, Andma's number of VP (Vice President) level executives reporting directly to Kevin Plank decreased from 10 to 6.
Unfortunately, until his resignation in 2022, Andma's performance did not show significant improvement. Patrick Frisk, who has 30 years of industry experience, is still so. Stephanie Linnartz's powerlessness is even easier to understand, especially since this executive from Marriott has only been in office for a year and has not had much time to show his skills.
Different periods often have different evaluations of a person, and Kevin Plank is no exception. The so-called "authoritarian and dictatorial" temperament of Kevin Plank in the past has now become the reason why shareholders expect him to be able to turn the tide. However, for Kevin Plank, there are no fewer issues that need to be addressed now than when he first abdicated. Problems such as single design, lack of female products, and lack of popular products still exist.
As early as 2008, Kevin Plank proposed an expansion plan for the sports shoe department. But in recent years, apart from spending a lot of money signing Curry Flow basketball shoes launched by Curry, Andma has no other explosive products. Many fashion enthusiasts refer to Andrma as a "brand that lives on Curry.".
The new marketing strategy "Team Girl" implemented by the brand since 2017 has also had little effect. When Stephanie Linnartz took office, this strategy had been implemented for 6 years, but in the most recent full fiscal year, the female business still accounted for less than a quarter of Andemar's total business. The "hardcore style" decoration of each main store and the male model dominated advertising cover of online stores seem to indicate that "Team Girl" has always been stuck at the level of shouting slogans and has not been implemented.
During this period, the distance between Andromeda and the "boss" Nike has become increasingly distant, and Adidas has snatched back the second place of the sports brand that they finally won. At the same time, Lululemon and Puma are also eyeing Andromeda's market share, and a large number of emerging sports brands are also rising
The biggest problem with Andema now is the lack of a strong product and brand culture, and low user loyalty. To get out of the predicament, one still needs to put effort into the product. At this point, Andma has been actively "self saving".
In January, Andma collaborated with special fabric and chemical company Celanese to launch a sustainable fiber that can replace spandex, specifically designed for high-performance elastic fabrics. This fabric not only has the advantage of sustainable development, but also improves production accuracy and meets a wider range of fabric specifications.
This is definitely Andma's "ambitious work". You should know that the brand started with sports tight fitting clothes made of dry fabrics.
On the trend track, Andma also has some ideas. The brand also appointed Yassine Saidi as the company's Chief Product Officer in January. During his tenure at Puma, this chief product officer, who came from a designer background, facilitated and participated in collaborations between German brands, pop diva Rihanna, and Canadian pop singer The Weekend. Both collaborations have produced popular products.
At that time, Stephanie Linnartz was still in charge of the company's business with Kevin Plank, so it is unclear whether Kevin Plank's intentions were behind these actions in product and personnel. But what can be certain is that Kevin Plank will only make many big moves within Andemar in the future to help the brand he founded go out of its slump.