Slaying Giants for Under Armour Website

Michael Dart Wadsworth can now add slaying giants…giant websites, that is, to his resume. Wads cut six individual, yet intertwined films for Under Armour’s Slay Your Next Giant microsite, unveiling the brand’s first global football campaign. Each film spotlights a different football player from various skill levels and ages, from features Memphis Depay of Manchester United and Cameron Carter-Vickers of the Tottenham Hotspur Academy to young up-and-coming players from around the world. As the viewer toggles from one film to the next, each player is revealed to be doing the same action as the other players.

As one can imagine, Wads had a difficult task in creating a seamless and unifying cut for each individual film to match the other five. When one player is tying up his laces, so are the other players in the other films. Beyond the standard challenges of an edit, Wads had to always be aware of exact consistency and lining the films up to sync actions. So if changes were made to one edit, changes reverberated six times over. Beyond that, most of the performers were children of various ages, and all of the players were non-actors, so it was important to find the edit that told a compelling and believable story.

Other interactive elements of the site include learning about the player stories and their “giants”, as well as sharing personal giants by creating one’s own lace image for Facebook and Twitter.

In addition to the microsite, Under Armour debuted the Slay Your Next Giant ad, featuring Memphis Depay and edited by JD Smyth and Michael Wadsworth. Mirroring the site, the ad focuses on players’ laces – the item that completes an athlete’s ritual before heading into battle. Taking the campaign to the field, Under Armour will outfit football athletes with customized laces engraved with a personal goal, each pair representing a new giant to slay. As players reach each milestone, they will symbolically remove their laces and replace them with a new pair, sharing their journey to greatness on social media channels along the way.