Adidas: Close, but not really

Adidas.tv is here.

In their decades long attempt to catch up to Nike, Adidas is launching an online TV channel. According to Advertising Age online, “The player is designed to encourage Hulu-style sharing and can be embedded in blogs and other social-networking sites via an Adidas-branded video-player module.”

For now, it just feels like they’re selling stuff.

Sure, they need to get it up and running, so they’ve loaded it up with some slick videos starring Dwight Howard and Gilbert Arenas and featuring Adidas products, with the hope that soon, others will join in and post their own videos.

But for now, it just feels like they’re selling stuff.

The secret to Nike’s success over the years was that they made marketing materials, especially TV commercials, that connected you to the Nike name vs any one certain thing.

They sold coolness. They got you to want to be on their team. That’s what sports is all about, right? Be on the best team. Or at least be a part of it. Who wouldn’t want to be with these guys?



They grew their brand by creating emotional bonds with consumers. And grow their brand, they did.

When I worked on Gatorade, we wanted the same ending, but we couldn’t do it the same way. Gatorade is a functional product that we not only needed to sell, but we also had to explain why you should use it. It’s obvious that you need shoes to play sports. You can’t go barefoot. But you could drink anything.

So even when we made almost purely emotional spots, we still needed to make sure the functional message came through. Hence, colored sweat, even if it’s just for one second. Like in this spot.



As much as we tried on Gatorade, we could never be like Nike, because we had a story to tell, and it made sense for us to tell that story, because people wanted to know why they should drink Gatorade over something else.

So while Gatorade had “Be Like Mike,” “I like Nike” was good enough for the guys out in Beaverton.

Adidas has never fully appreciated the fact that in their category, you’re not selling products, you’re selling a brand. They've made some very nice ads over the years, and clearly have forward thinking ideas. But they haven't been consistent enough.

They should stick to capturing people’s hearts, and letting their brains follow.