Our weekly wrap of good things, strange things, funny things and other things from inside the intertubes.
Browsing: Adidas
Following the sneak peak earlier this week, today Adidas revealed the new All Blacks’ jersey with a Facebook video by August that racked up hundreds of likes in the first half an hour. And while the jumper stands to improve the players’ game, what generates all the hype for fans? The All Blacks’ success and a sci-fi video appear to have done the trick.
TRA’s Luke Procter unpacks Adidas’s successful brand culture from his own experience as a ‘sneakerhead’.
Google has released its half-yearly list of the most watched YouTube ads by New Zealanders, with Hyundai being the most eyeballed by us. An ad by FCB New Zealand also made it onto the list with its ad for Sony featuring Rambo the ‘octographer’.
Adidas has released a new TVC by Augusto promoting its new campaign ‘Force of Black’ featuring some fierce footage of our boys in black.
In response to growing concern about this issue, Adidas has partnered with not-for-profit organisation Parley for the Oceans to develop a pair of sneakers made entirely out of waste collected from the ocean. And the prototype for these shoes was recently unveiled at a speaking event.
Adidas has released a new global campaign about seizing the moment, which features some of the world’s top athletes, including All Blacks Richie McCaw and Sonny Bill Williams. The campaign features 30-second TVCs of top athletes from around the world who are at the top of their game in their respective sports, delivering short monologues about why they “take today”.
Car coffee, dancing ingredients, shadowy rugby players, military surprises, underwear-clad acrobats and a money bunny get the nod of approval this week.
Planned obsolescence and apparel manufacturers go together like chimichurri and steak, with small changes to jerseys requiring true fans to buy new ones regularly. But, at a launch event in London ahead of its northern tour, Adidas claims to have made some big changes to the fancy new hi-tech All Blacks jersey by getting rid of the white collar, adding gun-metal grey lettering and, after player feedback, making two versions: one for the forwards and one for the backs.
The elusive Honey-billed William is like catnip to brands (and media). And after he announced his return to rugby earlier this year, Adidas swooped in and signed him up as an ambassador in May. Now it’s released a short clip telling his story as part of its #leaveyourmark campaign. PLUS: exciting jersey-related news.
Every brand and his dog is trying to get in on the action for the Football World Cup. And here are a few more ads from Twitter, GoPro and Adidas.
Adidas has created the game Fast or Fail which it says relies on the power of the social crowd to determine how fast a player can move. It’s a novel approach to marketing a soccer boot and drumming up attendance at the FIFA 2014 World Cup.
We’ll be seeing a lot more of the nation’s rugby stars in their tighty-whities now that Jockey has signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the All Blacks and the All Blacks Sevens. Updated with comments from Jockey marketing manager Jane Lawry.
The NZRU has made no secret of the fact it wants to get more sponsorship dollars. And certain All Blacks are already making their own endorsement hay while the sun shines. Sadly, big locks Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock aren’t on that list, but, as this clip shows, the cocktail-loving hard men are well and truly up for it.
Not surprisingly, the British press went berserk after Andy ‘History Boy’ Murray became the first British male to win Wimbledon since 1936 (check out a few of the front pages here, the best of which was from The Times). And, also not surprisingly, the sponsors are getting their pound of flesh too.
‘Creatively-led, humanity-obsessed’ agency/production company Augusto has done some good work for Adidas in recent times, like the 60-minute documentary on the history of the All Blacks jersey and the Supersounds campaign. And for its latest trick, it’s got Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Israel Dagg to embrace their domestic sides to promote the arrival of iron-on numbers on fan jerseys.
All Blacks sponsors have a long history of piecing together some game-day footage, showing a few big hits, adding a bit of emotive language to illustrate the mana of the black jersey and trying to give Kiwis a few goosebumps. Adidas did it to pretty good effect during the Rugby World Cup. And, with the game against the French kicking off on Saturday, Steinlager, which has sponsored the All Blacks for 27 years, has done it as well with a dubstep-backed ode to one of the most successful teams in world sport.
This industry isn’t renowned for its institutional memory and, when looking for candidates for the Back Then section in NZ Marketing, it’s a surprisingly common occurrence to hear back from agencies and brands who aren’t able to find any of their early advertising work. Online repositories are certainly helping to remedy that situation, and a good example of that is the nostalgia section on the new website of Wellington creative consultancy Doublefish, which is worth a gander for anyone with a passing interest in the craft of advertising—or local popular culture.
In what could be seen as either a blow for rugby purists lamenting the sport’s descent into commercialism or a massive boost for the New Zealand Rugby Union—and the game as a whole—global insurance company American International Group has signed a five and a half year sponsorship agreement that will see its logo take pride of place in the middle of the All Black jersey.
Sponsorship is less about logos on hoardings and more about activation these days (although ANZ might disagree after its logo-fest at The Cloud for Valerie Adams’ gold medal ceremony last week). In fact, some believe the old ratio of three dollars for every one spent on the sponsorship should now be upped to five. So in an effort to offer some added value to All Blacks fans, Adidas and Carat have unveiled Game Day, a Facebook application that lets them follow live commentary, comment on the game, track up-to-the-minute stats, access player and team profiles, weigh in on referee calls, vote for man of the match, and buy Adidas gear.
The NZRU will no doubt be hoping the All Blacks’ Rugby World Cup win might put a bit more lead in its commercial pencil to help get through a fairly difficult time for the national sport. And it’s managed to retain five of the team’s major sponsors, with Coca-Cola, Unilever, Sanitarium, Barkers and Bvlgari re-signing as All Blacks sponsors for undisclosed sums.
adidas New Zealand will be showing off one of the latest in marketing technology to its head office in Germany, all thanks to a Hamilton print company. Last November we told you about Print House in Hamilton’s new integrated multi-media technology that allows ultra thin video screens to ‘show-and-tell’ about a product. adidas New Zealand tried it, loved it, and are taking it to the company’s HQ in Germany.
While the mass-market weeklies continued to struggle last year, ACP popped a few corks when Woman’s Day finally edged out Woman’s Weekly in both circulation and readership after a very long wait. Elsewhere in 2011, special interest magazines largely seemed to hold firm despite the gloomy economy—and the predictions of death from the digitally-focused doomsayers. Sales manager Paul Gardiner goes to town on 2011.
When she’s not being a non-executive director for New Zealand Rugby League, the Cancer Society or the gang responsible for the Dunedin stadium, Jen Rolfe, the ex-director of Saatchi & Saatchi digital, is spreading the digital and direct gospel with Rolfe, the eponymous boutique agency she started last year. So, here’s lookin’ at 2011.
It was a big year of rugby for adidas and TBWA\ was behind much of the work done to leverage its sponsorship of the All Blacks. ‘All In’ and Stand in Black were solid campaigns, but for many they were overshadowed by the PR shitstorm that ensued after the jersey price debacle. And as the global sports giant shifts its focus away from rugby and towards other sports, so the focus also shifts away from the New Zealand branch and towards the two agencies it uses in Australia.
Who’s it for: Mitre 10 Mega and Plunket by DraftFCB and Flying Fish
Why we like it: We’re suckers for time-lapse, especially when it’s used to promote a campaign helping to raise money for Plunket. A good idea, well-made and a nice original track from …
The party may be over. But, as expected, there are plenty of sponsors trying to bask in the reflected glow of the All Blacks Rugby World Cup victory, including Adidas with its new ‘all ours, again’ spot.
It’s taken a while but the penny finally seems to have dropped. Advertising/marketing campaigns work much better if you aim to get good public relations from the get go. Not just for the brand/product but also for the campaign itself.
Print is often seen as the poor cousin of the media mix when it comes to creativity in advertising, especially when compared to some of the tricks now able to be performed in the online realm. But occasionally a publisher shows what can be done with good fashioned old paper and ink and NZ Rugby World has backed up its supreme accolades at the recent Magazine Awards with a very well-timed ‘barndoor’ cover on the August issue featuring our Dear Captain resplendent in Adidas’ new All Blacks jersey.
The last adidas campaign featuring a galaxy of stars was largely deemed to be an expensive, cringe-worthy flop. But the German apparel behemoth is aiming to make amends for that misfire with a massive new global campaign called ‘adidas all in’. And while it doesn’t quite reach the giddy heights of Nike’s ‘Write the Future’, it comes pretty damn close.