Do It Like Adidas — How to Convert with Killer Digital Content
February 4th, 2019. Sports labels master the digital game, with top brands excelling at brand awareness reputation and sales conversion.
Recently, I have learned about the three pillars sustaining Adidas’ digital strategy across the brand’s multiple touch points. These key strategies summoned up as ‘Attract’, ‘Engage’ and ‘Activate’.
Attract — Make them Look Twice
The ‘Attract’ phase is set-up in a way to capture the attention of potential customers and “Make Them Look Twice”. Standing out from the online noise is key here. The roll-out is first and foremost focused on social and targets GenerationZ.
An example is a campaign with influencers from key cities, from London (@vintagedollrisa), to Paris (@kimberlyskinny), New York (@avanope), LA (@cailinrusso), Shanghai (@lisisi ) and Tokyo (@Aya_Gloomy), going about their day. We can follow their lives, from morning to evening, and see them wearing product in a spontaneous fun and authentic way.
Engage — Keep them Captivated
‘Engage’, the second phase, is aimed at “Keep them Captivated”. It is also the moment when a deeper and therefore, longer story is told. Here, Adidas uses real people — from athletes to influencers — to showcase a real story of wider social interest.
“Find your Match” is a 2014 campaign meant to educate women on the importance of wearing the right sports bra for their specific bodies and training, thus promoting women’s health and well-being. The story is told here by exceptional female athletes and trainers, showing product in connection with a meaningful subject.
Step forward to August 2018, a fantastic example is London-based Pilates and wellness coach and dancer Isa Welly, who took part in the newest bras & tights campaign that is now available on social.
Activate — Make them Want It
Finally, the goal of the third stage ‘Activate’ is to “Make them Want It”. The stories told under this category show the love for the brand, explore great product details and technical features. Essential part of this strategy is to show a product in context as a way to raise its desirability. Displaying great shoe grip, testifying to water proof quality and other product specifications drives the point home.
Adidas Video Marketing
A big lesson is that Adidas does not repurpose existing assets for social. On the contrary, all of Adidas content is generated from the beginning having social in mind as well as focusing on its target audience, Generation Z.
From this, content is always shot in high resolution, as it can always be made lower but never the other way around, and shot wide, so that there is enough space to crop vertical or horizontally, to meet diverse requirements on social.
Given that Generation Z’s attention span is incredibly short — 2,8 seconds against 8 full seconds for a golden fish — content is always short striking and engaging.
Most of it is video, since video is processed 60.000 times faster than text by the human brain and so, naturally assures a greater level of engagement.
This attention deficit challenge is also surmounted through style and editing. Adidas’ videos on social have a fast pace glitchy look, helped by the juxtaposition of contrasting content, by placing video next to still photography, using b-roll captured by different cameras, from analogue, to digital, to the I-phone and glitchy camcorders, by recording in 4k, slow mo, etc. Capturing content in fast pace and editing it to look that way are some other strategies that go hand-in-hand with the audience Adidas aims to activate.
Adidas Killer Collaborations
Outside of the sports world, Adidas collaborations are manifold, from Pharrell Williams, Jeremy Scott, Kanye West, Stella Mccartney, a.o., and provide great insights into the brand’s strategy and promotion.
More recently, Daniel Arsham (@danielarsham) released the Future shoe as his third with Adidas Originals.
Arsham is a contemporary artist known mainly for his architectural interventions that subtly manipulate physical space making us question our established notions of space, time and experience. The artist accompanied the release of the ‘Future’ shoe with an art film that seamlessly ties the product to his art oeuvre. In mythological fashion, ‘Future’ is imbued with storytelling and art allure thus conveying great desirability.
Backed by planning, strategy and consumer insights, analysing and constantly learning from itself, Adidas is a leader in digital activations, one of which much can be learned from.
Liliana Rodrigues is a global PR & Marketing professional at international design studio Marcel Wanders.* As a passionate communication strategist and influencer, she regularly writes about brands, art and design.
*Text published February 4th, 2019.
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