I realize that we just posted about Adidas’ marketing efforts a few weeks ago, but I have a hard time resisting the urge to write about the intersection of marketing and basketball. It’s a weakness, I realize, but please indulge me. And besides, this is worth reading about.
While February has garnered a reputation as the most boring month in the sports calendar, 2010 might go a long way in changing that perception. The Super Bowl, as most of you might know, took place on Sunday. The Winter Olympics begin tomorrow night. And this weekend witnesses what may be the NBA’s marquee experience, All-Star Weekend. The sporting world’s attention will turn to Dallas for a three-day festival of three-point shootouts, skills competitions, the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge, and, of course, the All-Star Game itself. One of those All-Stars, Dwight Howard, has to a large extent made a name for himself through his participation in the Slam Dunk contest, whose dunking–bringing us back to the start of this post–has become the focus of an innovative marketing campaign for Adidas.
The hook of this campaign is simple, but it’s one that I haven’t seen in practice before. In a series of videos, Adidas highlights the potential interactivity usages of YouTube, all depicting various Howard dunks. In one video, viewers can control the height of Howard’s leap, using a simple control panel reminiscent of now-archaic video games. In another, viewers can alternate between four camera angles to better see Howard in action. But perhaps most interesting is the “locked” video. In the words of Howard, “the more you watch, the more you see.” As various viewer thresholds were reached, more of the video was unlocked. (Unfortunately, these videos don’t seem embeddable at this point.)
From an AdAge report:
A YouTube spokesman said Adidas is the first marketer to tie access to content to the number of views a video draws on its service. “What we liked about what Adidas did is that they actually gave it a viral component,” he said. “It’s something new to say, ‘We’ll give you some interesting content, and, if you share it, we’ll give you even more.’”
Adidas obviously benefits in this situation from launching this high-profile campaign during All-Star Weekend and from the exposure that comes with having contracted one of the NBA’s biggest stars as a spokesperson. And it seems to have worked: all the viewer thresholds have been met. I’m not sure if Adidas intentionally created reachable goals, but, even if they did, this is an innovative use of existing technologies, one which has created some buzz for the company and, maybe more importantly, its most marketable star.
Related posts:
- How Adidas Markets Its Tennis Players
- Subway Drops the Ball on Ryan Howard Contract Extension News
- Going Digital: Two Views From The New York Times
