Adidas MD defends local relevance of new ad featuring Beckham, Messi

I like it. Doesn’t matter if there’s no Australian talent – feel & out-take is still the same.

Who in terms of Australian talent would be relevant for this piece of communications anyway?

Who is the local agency for adidas?

All style, no substance.

Beautiful, but completely forgettable.

A prime example of big-budget big-agency big-yawn irrelevance as far as I can see.

One long, big cliche. Every trick in the book that ever been done before. Yawn. It goes nowhere. Adidud.

We get the All Blacks at 1’33, but is there any Australian component at all?

He has nothing to defend. There are enough global icons in there for the ‘yoof’ to idolise. Bit of a non-story this.

Wasn’t Thorpey an Adidas man? He just made a comeback, couldn’t they show his fat a$$ going up and down the pool or something?

The kiwi’s won’t be crowing – they get one second of the All Blacks, from a 10 year old clip.

Agree with what he says, it doesn’t need local talent to work. Unfortunately the ad itself is terrible. I’ve seen better stealomatics.

He’s right. It doesn’t need any local talent. Unfortunately, it’s a terrible ad. Possibly the worst Adidas has ever made. May be the most expensive but with no idea. I’ve seen stealomatics that worked better.

I really liked it. It’s speaks to the heritage of Addias advertising with a few ‘bringing into the future’ changes and is beautifully done. I’m not in their demo but it’s stuck with me and I bet it will for the teens who see it.

Yawn yawn yawn yawn – who cares !?!

Beckham / schmeckem…

Tim Cahill would have been the Australian talent to use but as good as he is he would have been out of place in a football sense alongside Beckham and Messi.

Medicore. It would be alright, but we know they can do better – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zd_khk6zXo

One of the best ads I’ve seen for years. But it does have Noel Gallagher and Ian Brown in it, so, well, it’s hardly fair.

Magnificent. Spoke to me. Love it. Cliche my arse, pictures may have been similar delivery was not. Primal!

I hope this doesn’t mean the end of the Adidas Original campaigns, they’ve been some of my favourite.

I love it! It’s sporty, it’s street, it’s cool. The talent they’ve used is perfect… we don’t have names as big or as cool as these guys.

Someone has confused “knowing” a celebrity with that celebrity having relevance. Umpire Dicky Bird stands at The Pavilion end with both arms outstretched signalling a wide.

The Nike “write the future” is still heaps better.

I really enjoyed this ad and yesterday I saw it filtering through my Facebook News feed from other friends that have also enjoyed it. I think this would be an indication that it is resonating well with the target market and in particular Australians.

It would be great to see Australians in this ad but I don’t think the average consumer would be thinking “where are the Australians?”, instead I think they will enjoy the ad for the emotion that it is conveying.

It is great that they have moved away from just sports. Adidas has major links to alot of different aspects of society and I think this ad conveys that message very clearly.

My guess is no one who posted a negative comment above is aged 14-19. My nephew is 13, into sport, hip hop and popular brands. He would love this ad.

it’s great as a historical piece – all that was considered cool Circa 2010/11.

All-In – is that not poker jargon – am i making a hopeful perhaps bluff of a bet with Adidas gear?

Quite liked it, but liked the Star Wars Addidas ad campaign a lot more.

Thought it was great! Wouldn’t mind having to watch that in between programs, definitely seen worse ads and it encompasses everything that Adidas is in terms of sport and fashion… bit of a fuss over nothing if you ask me.

They pour 99.999% of their coin in to celeb endorsments so I’m surprised they had any cash left to prduce anything let alone get it out to market!

Don’t love it…don’t hate it either. Not ideal? You want it to spark some kind of emotion?

Despite the fact there’s quite a bit of Soccer in there…..it’s extreeeeeeeemely Yanky.

I 100% agree that it doesn’t need local content to be relevant. What it does need is to be a great ad, which it’s not a bad ad, but it’s not a great ad.

“And for us to run campaigns for individual sports for individual countries is clearly not practical,” Hmmm, I got the sense that they are pretty focused on Basketball and Football/soccer, plus fashion. So tick for not doing individual countires, miss for not doing individual sports.

It’s a shame, because they can do it (or at least the agency that they employed to do this one) which they released during last year’s World Cup. Now this is a GREAT ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zd_khk6zXo

Not a patch on ‘impossible is nothing’ – at least that had a tangible idea at the heart of it.

“We want to talk to everyone” – Greg Kerr, Managing Director.

That tells you all you need to know about this abomination of a hype tape, masquerading as a commercial.

With that kind of brief, it was doomed from the start.

I like it and makes me happy about my recent adidas purchase. I’m guessing it wont run as a 120 second spot on Ch10 though … interested to see how it works as a cut down version.

no idea here at all…adidas falling further behind nike..the nike boys and w&K would be licking their lips with this one…

The ad redefines nothing, other than showcase a new tag line. Tweens will love it for the obvious celeb endorsements, but adults won’t care. A case of style over substance. However, using teaser spots prior to the delivery of the main did increase my level of engagement, and no I don’t work for any of the agencies involved.

Wedging in some low-rent Aussie talent would’ve been a mistake. Adidas have seen the writing on the wall – there’s more money in appealing to the two largest sports in the world (soccer and basketball) than there is in appealing to a struggling code (NRL) or a code that has reached it’s limit of appeal (AFL). The next generation has much more exposure to soccer and basketball, and the shift will be reflected in sales. Smart move.

He has nothing to defend! Yes the idea is not new but the clip is very well done for this kind of thing. My kids get and wear adidas and Messi is god in their eyes.
The only thing it may lack in the story is a bit of glue, as in the heritage of the brand. Good old Adi Dassler who was the most awesome creator of tech sports gear from the early 20s created the worlds first tech sports brand, that started winning gold medals in the 30s and became the choice of 75% of athletes at the 1960 Rome games. They now sell about 100 Million pair of footwear alone per year. So big international stars are spot on.

However . .
If you were only showed the celebrities feet . . . would you recognise who they were?

Nice call Suzanne, great ad, the kids i’ve spoken to love it and all wish they could be ‘one of those dudes’…its aspirational for the target market, they don’t care about heritage or substance or if the technique has been done before or are jaded by media hacks above, it’s all about the experience for them and they identify with it. Well done Adidas….and as a Kiwi i’m loving the fact that the brand has heroed the AB’s in the ad in-amongst some top talent…10 yr old shot or not….! Nice work!

The interesting thing is that the All Blacks are the most locally relevant inclusion in the ad but they appear towards the end of the spot doing the haka. The strategy behind the ad is to show footage of people preparing to play, playing and then celebrating play in that order but the haka appears in the celebration stage. I’m not sure about you but I’ve never seen the All Blacks do the haka after a game on the field rather than before the game. Maybe a re-edit is required to make the only bit of local relevance actually relevant…