Adidas fans don’t do anything halfway. Or so the sports apparel giant—the Footwear News 2011 “marketer of the year”—would have consumers believe. In March 2011, the brand rolled out the largest marketing campaign in its history. It advertised all three of the Adidas sub-brands—Sports Performance, Originals, and Sports Style—under one roof, with the tagline “Adidas is all in.”
The campaign centered on 30-second, 60-second, and two-minute videos that appeared on television and online. The commercials showed celebrities from different areas of culture interacting with the brand.
“The new campaign allowed us to create stronger, truer connections with the consumer by encouraging and celebrating a mix of interests and passions central to their lives,” said Patrik Nilsson, president of Adidas North America.
Though the primary above-the-line component was that commercial, the campaign was enhanced by print, retail, digital, and television components as well as events.
With the theme “a celebration of the game face,” Adidas hosted four regional activations in March. “Through the events, we enabled fans to dive deeper into the Adidas brand by connecting them directly to Adidas stars and creating experiences that inspired them to show us their own ‘game face,’” said Britt Jorgenson, director of sport performance brand marketing for the brand.
At one Los Angeles event, hip-hop band Far East Movement stopped by Franklin High School for an impromptu performance. The band asked audience members to snap photos of their surprised and delighted “game faces,” then upload the pictures to the Adidas Facebook page for the chance to appear in a commercial that ultimately aired at the MTV Movie Awards in June.
Related events saw Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard making a surprise visit to 300 children at the Parramore Kidz Zone in Orlando, Florida. NFL players Reggie Bush, Eric Berry, Prince Amukamara, and Titus Young surprised local high school players at a football practice in Los Angeles. And in Phoenix, Adidas pro skateboarders stopped by the Paradise Valley Skate Park to skate with 100 local kids.
The efforts to engage a younger audience paid off: Overall, the brand saw a 143 percent increase in U.S. Facebook fans, with 950,000 new followers. There was a 175 percent increase in 13-to-17-year-olds following the brand.
![For the after-party, Event Eleven built three 30-foot pagodas and hung 300 lanterns from the ceiling. They also brought in a 20-foot-tall bonsai tree and a variety of 30-foot red maples, along with other greenery and foliage. '[It all] helped create the organic atmosphere and helped transport guests into a gardenlike room,' said Schubert.](https://img.bizbash.com/files/base/bizbash/bzb/image/2024/02/Shogun.41_f.65dba8f23433b.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
