adidas, and a slam dunk of a mobile campaign

With the tough marketing arena of sporting shoes and apparel, German based, Adidas has always had stiff competition against brand names like Nike, Puma, Converse, and Reebok. Competition for this brand market share goes into a majority of sporting verticals types like; soccer, running, tennis and basketball.

In order to maintain and attract this market share, adidas felt that there was a need to engage consumers in the brand outreach with grass roots initatives and associations in order to be perceived as a hip and current consumer brand.

All-Star Mobile Experience Campaign

In 2007 adidas partnered with the NBA (National Basketball Association) to help promote the NBA All-Star game in Las Vegas, Nevada. Within this event initiative, adidas would be opening a new Sport Performance Store location, sell a specific All-Star themed product line, and managing basketball related consumer event.

In order to accomplish their goal of keeping in contact with the consumer during all three initiatives within a dynamic event environment, adidas hired MOVO Mobile, a Neighborhood America company, to create a custom mobile campaign. Adidas hired MOVO so the company could engage and manage the visiting All-Star consumer while on the move while in high energy Las Vegas environment.

In support of accomplishing the mobile initiative, adidas’s agency Isobar put up numerous 2-D graphic advertisements on buildings, taxi cabs and hotel billboards and on their website asking Las Vegas visitors to opt-in to a exclusive adidas mobile campaign. Consumer were asked to text in “Vegas” to a designation 6 digit number to receive announcements during the NBA All Star event. The electronic gifts included adidas branded phone wallpapers and special event information. This mobile experience provides consumers the opportunity to keep up to date on everything adidas has going on throughout Vegas – adidas Store events, athlete appearances, limited edition shoe releases and many other special announcements

Once adidas and Neighborhood America felt the opt-in via text had reached a total saturation goal, they sent out a text to the campaigns participants telling them of a exclusive limited edition All-Star shoe, only being sold at Sport Performance Store location. “Within 30 minutes of sending a text alert promoting the release of a limited edition All-Star shoe, a flash mob of eager consumers formed outside.” (Business Wire, 2007)

By far this campaign shows the power of mobile media if being integrated and optimized in a well thought marketing scenario.

Even with the initiative asking for a consumer to opt-in to be engaged, the consumer felt that adidas’s exclusive offerings outweighed any malaise to their person device or information.

Check out the YouTube video suggested from the good people of Neighborhood American:

References:

MOVO (NA) Retrieved September 28, 2009 from MOVOmobile.com Web site: www.movomobile.com

Adidas Press Archive (2009) Retrieved September 28, 2009 from adidas.com website: http://www.press.adidas.com/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-16/94_read-7545/

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