Like any good tease, it started subtly.
First, back in July, came a suggestive sound: a clickety clack of something on concrete heard at the end of television commercials. Soon followed a glimpse, a piece of a product appearing in print ads. Last week came the punch line.
On display at sporting goods stores throughout the country - encased in glass for all to see, but not yet touch - is the creation Under Armour Inc. has spent the last nine months tantalizingly unveiling on TV and the Internet and in magazines.
It's a shoe. A football cleat, to be exact.
A year "is a long time for the mystery," said Erik Gordon, an assistant professor of marketing at the Johns Hopkins University, about the planned product launch in June. "This had better be something where people look at it and go `wow.'"
Under Armour's foray into the cleat business is as much about the evolution of New Age marketing and the growing popularity of youth football as about the sportswear company itself, which went public last fall in one of the most successful new stock offerings in years.
Under Armour all but invented the market for perspiration-wicking shirts, but now it will vie for consumers with the much more established companies in the $15 billion athletic footwear industry, the Nikes and Reeboks of the world.
Under Armour hopes to sell about $8 million worth of football cleats this year, and says that's just a start.
It is all the more reason for the company to try to create a buzz among young people in a campaign much different from standard player endorsements of years ago.
"The type of campaign that we launched was intentional, we were trying to spread it virally," said Steve Battista, vice president of brand marketing at the Baltimore company, whose in-house team creates its advertising. "We need marketing and branding to last a lot longer than a 30- or 60-second commercial."
Online, bloggers have debated the shoe's potential. Teenagers are spreading rumors that their older brothers have gotten early access to prototypes. And Under Armour has been inundated with e-mails and calls from people all wanting to know more.
"It's a teaser campaign," said Roland T. Rust, chairman of the department of marketing at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. "You give people a slight glimpse to try to create interest and curiosity."
