Brief: Create content that can be used reactively to own the social conversation every time an adidas player has done something remarkable.
Role: Creative lead from inception to completion, including art direction.
Deliverables: A suite of cross-platform reactive content for over 30 players, each with 4 separate product styles, to be released across Instagram, Instagram Stories, Facebook and Twitter.
Every adidas athlete has their 15 minutes of fame, when a GIF-spawning goal or one-of-a-kind skill sets social on fire.
But the challenge the brand faced was how they could own this moment - breaking through the noise, landing the player as an adidas athlete and highlighting the marketed characteristics of their respective boot silo.
This wasn't easy - content needed to be pre-built weeks in advance with complete flexibility to react to an unpredictable moment as it happened. We also needed to land more than 30 players' individual personalities at the same time as the attributes of their boot silo, with content that was engaging and shareable on every platform.
By blending rotoscoped archive highlights with imaginative animated worlds, we created short social videos with an aesthetic that was malleable enough to speak to the archetype of the player, the product and the reactive moment, whilst not feeling contrived or overtly branded.
It felt like what fans would make if they had the propensity and the budget to sit down and create a celebration of their favourite players. This is why we felt it succeeded, going on to be widely shared and engaged with.
Beyond this, the likes of Firmino, Salah and Ozil - some of the biggest stars in world football - shared our videos with their own captions, totally of their own accord, because they felt we'd nailed their personality.
