Adidas’ ongoing ‘There Will Be Haters’ campaign not only sees the brand push its F50 boot via a traditional media campaign, but also follow this through by enthusiastically defend its player ambassadors on Twitter showing that the brand is willing to do what it can to defend its ambassadors on social media and to put the Twitter trolls in their place.

Developed in harness with Iris London, the initiative is spearheaded by a provocative spot featuring some of the Adidas stars currently facing bitter fan criticism – from pantomime villain Luis Suarez to Gareth Bale’s who’s own Real Madrid fans seem to have turned on him.

With a blunt voice-over saying ‘They hate the way you walk. They hate the way you talk, They hate that you score all the goals…and get all the girls’ and with players’

Then, as the concerned expressions morphing into smug smiles, the provocatively bombastic commercial moves to the sell: ‘And they hate your shiny new boots. They hate your boots, because they wish they were in them.’

The spot, which generated traction as it received two million views in two days, also sees the screen flooded with trolling hashtags like #FAIL, #FREAK and #FUGLY and Adidas is following up on social media by responding to the inevitable anti-Adidas avalanche.

To one tweet claiming that Ronaldo (rival Nike’s top star) was a better player than Messi, the German sports giant replied with a picture of Messi surrounded by his four Ballon d’Or trophies and the simple question ‘Are you sure?’.

@adidasUK Ronaldo is better than Messi.

— Ben (@TurnCruyff) March 15, 2015

@TurnCruyff are you sure? pic.twitter.com/QPvnNPtMP0

— adidas UK (@adidasUK) March 15, 2015

Another combative reply to a tweet insulting Mesut Ozil saw Adidas (which designs the German national kit) was a striking photo of Ozil kissing the World Cup trophy along with the #therewillbehaters hashtag.

Adidas is also rolling out non-superstar strands of the campaign across social media, such as.

Young #FFC winger @patrick7roberts is fast, smart & skillful, so the Haters stay close @adidasuk #ThereWillBeHaters https://t.co/IF9emSpSbP

— JD Football (@JDFootball) March 12, 2015

Comment

The campaign marks a tactical change towards what Adidas has described as a push towards more aggressive and relentless storytelling.

The Adidas ‘Haters’ campaign is certainly bold and brave, not least as its ‘offense is the best form of defence’ approach is bound to alienate some and perhaps even offend a few.

Nevertheless, it has certainly generated a great deal of engagement (even if many of those engagements are combative.

Of course, there will never be an end-point.

Trolls may fade from fashion, but they will never disappear.

But the campaign is also raising the brands social presence back towards its record-high World Cup levels.

Indeed, there is something of a trend developing for sports brands to highlight athlete angst and protect them from public criticism.

Think back to last year’s powerful Beats By Dre ‘Hear What You Want’ campaign featuring star sportsmen drowning out rival fan pre-game criticism with the help of sound-cancelling headphones, including spots fronted by Colin Kaepernick,

Kevin Garnett,

and Cesc Fabregas.

Yet is there a sense of hypocrisy in the campaign emanating from a brand that was at the forefront of elevating its ambassadors onto public pedestals in the first place?

If we are now entering an age of a more self-conscious athletes, sports stars who are as human (and as neurotic) as the rest of the population, should the battle really be fought on their behalf by the very same brands who first ran the totemic, iconic ad campaigns that tried to place these celebrities onto a higher plane and position them as having some form of god-like status?

Plus, one wonders whether there is a presumed (somewhat odd) underlying message that if you want people to envy and hate you, then wear Adidas.

Links

Adidas Website:

http://adidas.com

Adidas Football Website:

http://www.adidas.com/football

Adidas YouTube:

http://youtube.com/adidasfootball

Adidas Twitter:

https://twitter.com/adidasfootball

Adidas Facebook:

https://facebook.com/adidasfootball