United is capitalizing on the growing link between fashion and football

The tunnels of major sports venues have come to be known as fashion runways. For its latest campaign, United Airlines is turning tarmacs into very literal runways for athletes.

United, which serves as the official airline for eight NFL teams, caught wind of the growing crossover between fashion and football, including the trend of players posting their in-flight outfits when they touch down for away games, and saw an opportunity to get involved, Maggie Schmerin, United’s chief advertising officer, said.

“It has become such a priority, in a lot of cases, for these players to focus on their fits and their fashion,” Schmerin told Marketing Brew. “These players look like these superhero characters [with] beautiful aircraft behind them…That was happening organically, and we said, ‘Let’s actually turn this into something a bit more formal.’”

The resulting athlete-studded campaign, which will have a large out-of-home component as well as a presence in national print publications, is meant to bolster relevance and reputation for a brand in an industry that most people don’t engage with nearly as often as they watch football, Schmerin said.

Touching down

United’s campaign, called “Football Flies United,” features Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Chicago Bears wide receiver Rome Odunze, San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, and Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jerry Jeudy showing off their personal style as they disembark United planes.

United sponsors each of the teams featured in the ads; some, like the Bears, have been partners for decades, and others, like the Chiefs, are newer relationships. Schmerin said that While other brands have sought league-level partnerships, United has focused on team partnerships as a way to target its seven US hub cities.

As for the athletes themselves, while many football players put serious thought into their outfits, this group was chosen for their particular “care and attention” to fashion, Schmerin said. Juszczyk, for instance, has deep ties with the fashion world in part because his wife, Kristin Juszczyk, is a designer who has a licensing deal with the league. Odunze, meanwhile, has worked with United multiple times, including on a social video earlier this season.

Paper planes

“Football Flies United” is primarily a local, out-of-home campaign running in San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago, and Kansas City, Schmerin said. But there’s also a print component with ads in national publications including Vogue, GQ, and the New York Times, a rare buy for the brand that’s meant to reach a broader audience.

“We don’t do a lot of print advertising,” Schmerin said. “But we felt that this campaign and these photos warranted that placement, because they did feel high fashion…When we were building this campaign, we kept saying, ‘You could see this in GQ.’ And then we looked at ourselves and said, ‘Well, let’s actually go put it in GQ.’”

Buckle up

Like many brand marketers and sports sponsors in particular, Schmerin and her team are interested in making the United brand feel culturally relevant, which can be especially difficult in a space like the airline industry.

“A coffee company or a CPG brand, people are thinking much more often about those products,” she said. “They’re buying coffee every single day, or they’re buying toothpaste more regularly. We’re fortunate if people think about us three, four, or five times a year.”

Connecting United to football and fashion is part of an effort to help the brand “stay top-of-mind and relevant,” Schmerin told us. The campaign is also meant to demonstrate the relationship that United has with the teams it sponsors, she added, showing its role flying them to and from away games, which is not always easy to convey.

Though the campaign only went live a couple of weeks ago, Schmerin said she’s already thinking about potentially expanding it to other teams and players.

“We feel we’re onto something…and [plan to] keep our eye on this intersection of fashion, travel, and the league,” she said.