Launched on 10 August, days ahead of the start of the new Premier League Season, sportswear giant Adidas and Arsenal FC launched a joint campaign promoting the team’s third kit in the form of a mockumentary.
The three-plus minute film promotes the new men’s, women’s and youth third strip via a tongue-in-cheek tribute to all Arsenal’s fans focused on a 60-year-old fictional superfan called Len.
Len is depicted as an Arsenal legend and the spot sees Gunners’ players telling stories about him and about his influence on some of the team’s most historic moments.
The spot, which was created by agency Iris and directed by Dominic O’Riordan through production company Kode, rolled out across Instagram, Twitter and YouTube as well as running on Adidas and Arsenal’s digital channels.
The campaign was created by a team at creative agency Iris which included Executive Creative Director Grant Hunter, Creative Directors Rachid Ahouiyek and Henry Scotland, Associate Creative Directors Matthew Carter and Jonathan Wedlake, Planner David Austin, an account team which included Ben Buchanan, Theo Jenkins and Dyfed Thomas and Producers James Plaxton, Sophie Smith and Michael Hanney.
The production company was Kode, the director was Dominic O’Riordan, the editing company was Stitch with Editor Jack Singer. Post-production was handled by Kode Red, audio post-production by Grand Central Recording Studios and the sound engineer was Tom Pugh.
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Generating 100,000 YouTube views on Arsenal’s channel alone in its first 48 hours, this whimsical, fictional film promotes a kit with a design that draws inspiration from 90s style and culture and features a shirt with a blend of Mystery Blue, Scarlett and Signal Cyah, plus dark blue shorts and socks.
The north London side’s new third kit campaign launched just three days ahead of the kick off of the new 2021/22 season which will see fans finally return to stadiums for the start of the Premier League.
The kit will be worn on pitch for the first time on 13 August for Arsenal’s opening Premier League fixture against newly promoted Brentford.
This Arsenal third kit campaign follows on days after former Iris creative heads Rachid Ahouiyek, Henry Scotland and Nico Tuppen launched a marketing push promoting Manchester United’s new adidas away kit in what was the trio first campaign launched by their new agency Homeground.
Homeground is positioned as a new creative sports marketing agency specialising on the intersection between sport and culture and its three founders previously led the adidas and Barclays football accounts at Iris.
The campaign launch also dovetailed with the launch of the agency’s ‘Homeground Academy’: a community outreach programme offering 3-6 month real living wage paid placements to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who have fallen out of sport and which offers ‘a foot in the door to a variety of potential careers available in the sector’.
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