A month before Brazil 2014 kicks off FIFA partner rolls out a boot-led, product-focused thread within its ‘All In Or Nothing’ World Cup campaign called ‘Battle Pack’.
The initiative launches the brand’s official World Cup footwear collection, in development since 2012, via a highly stylized spot featuring futuristic fighting tribes and powerful black and white imagery and showcasing its latest football boots.
The black and white imagery reflects the boots own 50:50 two colour scheme and the work features five pairs of boots – one from each of the brand’s ranges (Adizero, F50, Predator, Nitrocharge, 11Pro and Adizero F50 Messi).
The only other colour featured on all five pairs is the fiery gold on adidas’ iconic three stripes logo – representing the FIFA World Cup trophy itself.
(Although the Adizero F50 Messi is an exception as it includes an Argenitnian-inspired blue and white colourway).
Based on a Brazilian theme, both the boots and the advertising creative are ‘inspired by the war paint of native warriors and the iconic pavement patterns of ancient Mesopotamia perfected on the Copacabana beach’.
Across television, print, online and mobile, the tribal war mentality and battle preparation themes runs throughout the creative with war paint shadows across the aggressively snarling faces of player ambassador warrior athletes.
The Battle Pack campaign is led by an introductory, 1-minute 15-second umbrella spot,
plus a shorter (15-second) collection ad,
These are followed by individual product-specific online ads, such as Adizero F50 Messi,
the Predator Instinct,
the F50,
the Nitrocharge,
and the 11Pro..
The entire campaign thread also carries adidas’ umbrella Brazil 2014 tagline ‘All In Or Nothing’.
‘For Battle Pack, we wanted the boots to be highly visible on pitch and stand out from the extreme range of colour everyone expects to see in Brazil,’ explains Adidas senior VP global football Markus Baumann.
‘Our FIFA World Cup campaign is “All In Or Nothing’ and this mindset is represented perfectly through the black and white colourway chosen for the boots. In addition, we wanted to pay homage to a unique Brazilian design and the powers associated with the boots and style of the players wearing them. They will help prepare our players for battle in Brazil, as they aim for glory.’
The campaign features all five boots and five soccer stars and each pairs’ individual patterns have been designed to express the attributes of both the boot and the abilities of the player type who wears them: speed, bravery, control, energy and agility.
These boots will be worn during the FIFA World Cup by the entire roster of adidas players involved in the tournament: To celebrate the magnitude of this epic event, every adidas athlete at the World Cup: including Lionel Messi, Mesut Ozil, Dani Alves, Luis Suarez, Oscar, Philipp Lahm, Karim Benzema, Javi Martinez, Jozy Altidore, Graham Zusi, Omar Gonzales, Julian Green, DeAndre Yedlin and Timmy Chandler.
Comment
As ever with major football events, adidas’ work goes head-to-head with rival Nike’s marketing and in the Brazil 2014 boot battle this adidas campaign compete with Nike’s latest Magista
and Superfly campaigns.
Indeed, it seems that this sportswear brand battle is the real ‘us vs them’ fight that adidas had in mind when developing its creative campaign theme, imagery and messaging.
Much of the campaign copy certainly reflects this underlying category competition
‘You have a choice. Fear or be feared. Hunt or be hunted. Evolve or die. Now or never. It’s black or white. all in or nothing. ‘
This boot-focused, product-led strand to its World Cup marketing arsenal launched just days before its core, global Brazil 2014 ‘All In Or Nothing’ initiative (see case study).
Throughout the tournament, adidas aims to continue to link its creative by bringing fans an insider look at the preparation for battle.
The boot-focused marketing thread, also dovetails with adidas’ previous ball-led ‘Brazuca Around The World’ campaign (see case study)
and its Messi-fronted ‘Fast Or Fail’ gaming initiative (see case study).
Together they form a multi-pronged World Cup activation approach as adidas attempts to reverse poor sales figures in the last quarter and fight back against rival brand and infamous World Cup guerrilla marketer Nike.
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