The Challenge … With Coty looking to relaunch its adidas Sport Sensations anti-perspirant in 2014, all eyes were on the upcoming World Cup.
Many brands were looking to piggy-back the event, so the Adidas body care brand had to come up with a strategy that would cut through the noise and really engage with the football obsessed 15-24-year-old male target audience.
The male anti-perspirant category is driven by price but consumers mentally shortlist a repertoire of brands that they consider when making a purchase. Getting into the minds of the target audience was the key to a successful re-launch. Launch specialists Five by Five were given the task of making it happen.
Our Insight
Five by Five’s insight was that for the adidas Sport Sensations’ market ‘authenticity’ and ‘being real’ are highly valued. The brand is the only true sports performance brand in the marketplace, designed to deliver maximum dryness and freshness, whatever the situation. The campaign had to leverage this by connecting emotionally with the consumer base.
Our Solution
The agency came up with the idea of ‘Real Performance’ – showing how the product would deliver for users in real performance situations. In order to prove it, it devised an epic experiential idea, ‘One Shot from Brazil’, which capitalised on football as a theme during the year of the World Cup, and challenged consumers to the ultimate test of their nerves.
For three months a campaign ran to recruit four penalty takers, who would have to demonstrate skill, togetherness and coolness under pressure for the chance to win a money-can’t-buy football experience in Brazil.
To build anticipation, the campaign was teased out via targeted sites from football news sites to YouTube alongside a series of product-focused pre-roll and mobile ads. The target audience were challenged to impress by uploading videos of their freestyle football skills on a bespoke campaign microsite. Hundreds more entries were received through a pop-up event complete with DJ and professional freestylers.
The campaign was supported through print adverts and a full scale digital campaign including mobile and banner adverts, page takeovers and video content that inspired and motivated entrants.
Four finalists were selected based on their skill and ability to handle the pressure of a nail biting penalty shoot-out that would decide whether then could deliver a real performance under pressure.
The four spent a day being trained by a Premier League coach and given professional level psychological preparation before the challenge itself. The next day, in front of a baying audience, and facing international goalkeeper Craig Gordon, they had to score three out of four penalties in order to guarantee a trip to Rio.
A legendary full-length video was filmed which perfectly captured the build-up of tension and pressure amongst the challengers and the sheer emotion each of them experienced. It also provided adidas body care with truly engaging content for a series of trailers to promote its new range across social media.
The Results
The campaign really caught the imagination of the target market, reaching 4.2 million core consumers. Ten bespoke videos were created which achieved more than 8.4 million combined views. The Get Ready UK website garnered more than 37,250 unique users with the majority of referrals coming from YouTube and Facebook.
As a result of the campaign, adidas body care became the number one brand in the category for online share of voice. This in turn helped deliver 37% year on year sales growth, from -27% the previous year.
Faced with an international stopper, the challengers didn’t quite manage three out of four penalties – two missed. However, the brand decided that their efforts had demonstrated ‘real performance’ and all four ended up going on the trip of a lifetime to Rio.