Adidas: Breaking The Pattern With Adidas Glitch

Credits & Description:

Title: Breaking The Pattern With Adidas Glitch
Agency: Iris Worldwide, Possible
Brand: Adidas Football
Country: USA
Entrant Company: Possible, Seattle
Advertising Agency: Iris Worldwide, London / Possible, Seattle
Production Company: Iris Worldwide, London / Possible, Seattle
Ecd: Pablo Marques (Possible)
Director Business Development: Marc Makowski (Adidas Football)
Global Communications Manager, Special Projects: Miriam Keck (Adidas Football)
Senior Manager Digital Experience: Hans-Eric Noyons (Adidas Group)
Agency Producer: Laura Jane Justice (Iris/adidas)
Creative Director: Iain Robson (Iris)
Creative Technology Director: Stuart Thorne (Possible)
Design Director: Wojciech Zalot (Possible)
Ux Designer: Pontus Persson (Possible)
Global Planning Director: Michael Barrett (Iris/adidas)
Managing Partner: Nico Tuppen (Iris)
Senior Designer: Mariana Lobos (Iris)
Senior Art Director: Tarik Bedevi (Iris)
Senior Copywriter: Ric Blank (Iris)
Account Executive: Jasmina Cigoja (Iris)
Design Director: Jose Paz (Freelance)
Lead Mobile Developer: Peter Schmiz (Possible)
Business Director: Von Branton (Possible)
Senior Project Manager: Julia Sz.Kis (Possible)
Senior Ui Developer: Istvan Makary (Possible)
Senior Motion Designer: Laszlo Szekeres (Possible)
Pr Manager: Sebastian Bell (Adidas)
Global Pr Director: Simon Bristow (Adidas Global)
Synopsis:
Football is changing. Premiership players are being challenged for respect by Freestylers and Academy players who make play look like an art form, not just a competition. Young, urban, players aren’t looking up to Pogba so much as street players and Instagram stars. So, if you’re an establishment brand like adidas, how do you connect with this audience of “Creators” – the players that set the pace for the wider audience around them?You throw the rule book away. You ditch traditional media channels. You create a new product. And you involve these “creators” in every step of development and launch.Introducing GLITCH. A product innovation and a community which is built, managed and maintained by a team of social influencers.
Outcome:
The main trade publications in the world of football were interested - Urban Pitch, Soccer Bible, Footyheadlines, COMPLEX. All ran stories before and after launch and continue to release updates and reviews as new skins are released. The focus was on quality not quantity - our audience wasn't reading national newspapers or watching TV, they were on social media, reading football blogs, connecting on social media and looking at niche websites created by their peers. So those were our main targets - consumer led blogs or social channels and football specific outlets.We started small and kept the release controlled. Despite this, GLITCH trended immediately and boots were in demand. The GLITCH app has had over 60 thousand downloads in the first six months.Boot sales were resticted, so players took to social media begging for referral codes from their contacts. We made it into the ‘HOT this week’ list in the Apple app store in our first week. We even saw access codes being sold on eBay. The codes seeded by our first influencers had a 75% conversion rate to a boot sale and we’ve continued to see an 89% redemption rate on codes being activated.All achieved without a scrap of media spend, zero advertising or sponsorship & no celebrity endorsement. GLITCH transformed one of football's most recognisable brands into one of its hottest start-ups. It turned the industry upside down and created a completely new relationship between a brand and consumer.
Relevancy:
GLITCH avoids classic channels and focuses on Mobile and influencer-led Social activity to prompt interest, drive awareness and generate buzz around a new product launch. We involved our audience right from the beginning, using the power of influencers social channels to spark the interest of our audience and the trade press, who then reported on a new product with a completely new purchase channel. You can only buy them through a mobile e-commerce app and you can only book fittings or purchase a pair with an invite code. All interactions happen within a custom-built platform. There were NO traditional ads.
Execution:
This new football boot is ONLY available for purchase through a mobile app, designed and built to make the boot a must-have for the new football stars. Aimed at urban street players whose freestyle play is as dependent on the style as it is the score. We intentionally started small, with a core group of influencers and urban footballers in London. This allowed the community to grow gradually and organically. Influencers were empowered and highly engaged throughout, actively helping to shape the community by deciding who became a part of it and contributing towards the customer support and homepage sections of the app with peer-to-peer advice, product demos and promotional User Generated Content.There were reward and value exchange mechanics built into the app too, encouraging interaction and engagement to exist beyond a single purchase with free skins and extra referral codes on offer for the most active users.
Strategy:
Around 90 young players were invited by the adidas brand to help pre-test the product, critiquing and improving it at every stage right up to the launch. Approximately two dozen players are now working for the project, either by providing customer service support, attending fitting sessions or being involved in content and product creation. Adidas call it an ‘open source’ philosophy. The whole project is based on the belief that you can only create genuinely cool products if you bring in creative thinkers from a whole range of different fields, merging agencies and brand owners with influencers and players, letting them influence the product by giving them scope to develop their ideas.The app sits at the heart of this community – both a vehicle of content and a mobile eCommerce platform, it attracts and connects likeminded individuals over a common interest, without being too pushy or salesy.
Campaign Description:
GLITCH is a brand new football boot concept AND a brand new route to market. The product itself features an inner shoe for perfect fit and a laceless outer skin that offers perfect ball control, but is also interchangeable allowing players to express their own style. The designs, the name, the launch – every single facet was co-created with football influencers. They were involved from the beginning. They owned it. They cared.At launch they were given unique referral codes that gave fans access and kick started the community. They made the first bits of content to sit on the app, attended the exclusive launch party and took it upon themselves to create buzz around its release.And they still play an active role in running it - attending fitting sessions on the pitch with new customers, manning the support channel and continuing to contribute content to drive the GLITCH community.