Misty Copeland. Natasha Hastings. Jessie Graff. Alison Désir. Zoe Zhang. They’re all athletes. Not female athletes—just athletes. That’s a key distinction Under Armour is trying to make in its latest marketing campaign, “Unlike Any,” for its women’s division.

Last August, during the Olympics in Rio, the Under Armour team notices something unsettling. “Every time a woman won, she got compared to men,” Adrienne Lofton, svp of global brand management, said Wednesday at the launch event for the new campaign in New York’s Chelsea Market.

“We had to start thinking about how to change this conversation. Why is there always a framing that when a woman does well, she’s compared to the greatness of a man? We needed to remove gender from the conversation,” Lofton said.

For “Unlike Any,” created by Droga5, Under Armour selected five standout athletes (two of them new to the brand’s roster) who have all achieved great feats in their careers, but have also overcome massive hurdles to get to where they are today. Rather than having the athletes tell the stories themselves, the brand turned to poets (Aja Monet, Kojey Radical, Dominique Christina, Aristophanes and Saul Williams) to breathe new life into these stories.

The results are quietly breathtaking.

“What we wanted to do was strip down and really get into the psyche of, Who are these athletes? And how are they able to continue to propel themselves forward?” Lofton told Adweek. “We thought, That’s going to be one of those first key steps to break through this perception that Under Armour is about sweat only and is too much of a performance brand for me. No. We are for every woman.”

It may seem difficult for an everyday person to relate to Copeland’s specific path to success and being a professional ballerina, but there are elements of her struggles that women (or anyone, for that matter) can relate to. That is what each of the poets aim to capture in their respective films.

The combination of Copeland’s strength and grace, paired with Saul Williams’ words (“The systemic structure built to keep me in place is the stage I dance on. Black, and woman”) and the direction by Agile Films’ Georgia Hudson, is chill-inducing. It’s also unlike anything we’ve seen from the brand before.

“It doesn’t feel so much like advertising because it’s not so very loud and shouting a message out—how you should live, how you should behave and how you should train,” said Alexander Nowak, executive creative director at Droga5. “In the past, the work has been a little more active, but this one is very delicate and almost observational. We just observe people and let the poet tell this beautiful story.”

“In this campaign we wanted to honor under recognized feats of female athleticism by showcasing women who cannot be compared to anything that has come before. By portraying them as somewhat ‘godlike,’ we wanted to elevate them to the level they deserve,” added Kia Heinnen, senior art director for Droga5.

While Copeland’s is the only spot without any musical pairing—a decision made close to the final hour in the last rounds of editing—the four other spots delivers the same powerful punch and are shot in the same style, with the camera flipping upside down and capturing the athletes from all angles.

“With filming, the idea was that as the poetry tries to circumscribe the athlete. Because the athlete is ‘Unlike Any,’ the camera does the same,” said Felix Richter, executive creative director at Droga5. “The thought was to do something that feels sort of celebratory from a camerawork point of view, but also fresh, new and interesting. These sort of twists and turns are kind of happening in symmetry with the words.”

For Natasha Hastings, the self-proclaimed “400M Diva” and gold medal-winning runner, the spot focuses on her battle to overcome her own inner doubts and how that made her unlike any other athlete or runner out there—male or female. “I figured out how to fly. How to command my limbs, of my immaculate womanness. The red lipstick war paint. I am a chariot of possibility,” poet Dominique Christina says as Hastings explodes into the distance.

There were really no parameters for the films in terms of length. “There weren’t so many constraints on the canvas of the advertising because, most likely, this campaign lives online. We are not limited to hitting a 30-second mark or 60-second mark. If the film is 43 seconds long and that’s the perfect length to tell her story, then so be it,” Nowak said.

Stunt woman Jessie Graff’s ad, narrated by Kojey Radical, runs 37 seconds long, while Alison Désir’s hits 53 seconds.

The “Unlike Any” campaign will continue to roll out over the coming months, with another big push coming this fall featuring skier Lindsey Vonn, who was the first spokeswoman for the women’s line when it launched a decade ago.

Check out the other spots from the campaign below.

CREDITS

Client: Under Armour
Campaign: “Unlike Any”

Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Executive Creative Director: Felix Richter
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Nowak
Senior Copywriter: Doug Hamilton
Senior Art Director: Kia Heinnen
Art Director: Castro Desroches
Junior Copywriter: Diana Perez
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Co-Director of Film Production: Jesse Brihn
Co-Director of Film Production: Bryan Litman
Senior Producer Film: Rebecca Wilmer
Producer, Film: Nathan Pardee
Music Supervisors: Ryan Barkan, Mike Ladman
Business Affairs Manager: Mairéad Murray
Director of Interactive Production: Niklas Lindstrom
Director of Art Production: Cliff Lewis
Senior Producer, Art: Bianca Escobar
Director of Print Services: Rob Lugo
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Co-Head of Strategy: Harry Roman-Torres
Group Strategy Director: Will Davie
Strategist: Newman Granger
Head of Communications Strategy: Colleen Leddy
Communications Strategy Director: Hillary Heath
Senior Communications Strategist: Kathryn Ruocco
Chief Intelligence Officer: Amy Avery
Data Strategist: Kaveri Gautam
Executive Group Director: Julian Cheevers
Group Account Director: Shane Chastang
Account Director: Lucy Santilli
Account Supervisor: Kate Tyler Monroe
Associate Account Manager: Megan Haggerty
Group Project Manager: Bill Wilson
Senior Project Manager: Carolyn Brafman

Client: Under Armour
Chief Executive Officer: Kevin Plank
Chief Marketing Officer: Andrew Donkin
SVP, Global Brand Management: Adrienne Lofton
SVP & General Manager, Women’s: Pam Catlett
VP Global Brand Management, Women’s Youth: Attica Jacques
Global Brand Manager, Campaign Integration: Bené Eaton
Global Brand Manager, Women’s: Cate Goytisolo
Associate Global Brand Manager, Women’s: Molly O’Hara
Vice President, Global Brand Creative: Brian Boring
Art Director, Global Brand Creative, Women’s Youth: Giselle Lewis-Archibald
Project Manager, Global Marketing Operations: Jen Aldinger
VP, Global Consumer Engagement: Jim Mollica
Senior Director, Global Consumer Engagement: Jack Daley
Senior Manager, Global Consumer Engagement: Veronica Mao
SVP, Global Communications: Diane Pelkey
Director, Global Communications: Erin Wendell
Marketing Director, Under Armour China: Lydia Zhu
Senior Marketing Manager, Under Armour China: Eddy Chen

Production Company: Agile Films
Director: Georgia Hudson
DOP: Zoë White
Executive Producer: Myles Payne
Head of Content: Alex Chamberlain
Line Producer: Martha English

Editorial: WORK Editorial
Editor (Lindsey, Alison, Natasha): Ben Jordan
Editor (Misty, Jessie, Zoe): Cass Vanini
Assistant Editor: Trevor Myers
Assistant Editor: Theo Mercado
Executive Producer: Erica Thompson
Senior Producer: Sari Resnick

Post Production: Blacksmith
Executive Producer: Charlotte Arnold
Executive Producer: Megan Sweet
Producer: Anu Nagaraj
VFX Shoot Supervisor: Daniel Morris
VFX Shoot Supervisor: Melissa Graff
2D Lead: Daniel Morris
2D Lead: Melissa Graff
2D Artist: Iwan Zwarts
2D Artist: Margolit Steiner
2D Artist: Jacob Slutsky
2D Artist: Caio Sorrentino
2D Artist: Tuna Unalan
2D Artist: Trace VFX
3D Tracking: QL Beans
Designer: Min Liu

Color: MPC
Executive Producer, Color: Dani Zeitlin
Producer, Color: Jenna Gabriel
Colorist: Adrian Seery

Music: Q Department
Executive Producer: Zach Rice
Senior Producer: Guin Frehling
Creative Director: Drazen Bosnjak

Sound:  Gramercy Park Studios
Audio Engineer: Chris Afzal
Sound Designer: Chris Afzal
Executive Producer: Vicky Ferraro
Associate Producer: Laura Goehrke