Title	#ALLIN OR NOTHING
Brand	ADIDAS
Product/Service	ADIDAS FOOTBALL
Category	C02. USE OF SOCIAL IN A PR CAMPAIGN
Entrant Company	WE ARE SOCIAL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency	WE ARE SOCIAL London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Agency	CARAT London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Aisling Mccarthy	We Are Social	Group Account Director
Joe Weston	We Are Social	Account Director
Gareth Leeding	We Are Social	Creative Lead
Ollie Olanipekun	We Are Social	Creative
John Crozier	We Are Social	Senior Account Manager
Chris Nee	We Are Social	Editor
Daniele Santoro	We Are Social	Account Executive
James Harrison	We Are Social	Designer
Jack Greenwood	We Are Social	Junior Designer
Joe Faul	We Are Social	Research/Insight Director
Andreas Plastiras	We Are Social	Senior Research/Insight Analyst

The Campaign

adidas attacked FIFA World Cup 2014 head-on to land its message: #allin or nothing. The social objective: be the most talked about brand at the World Cup. An hour-by-hour, platform-by-platform editorial calendar identified every possibility as early as December. A Content Bible containing thousands of tools became the foundations of seamless World Cup storytelling. A world class team of football experts and obsessives who worked for six months to create those tools, flying all over the world at a moment’s notice to shoot the world's best players. By May, the planned content pieces were organised in the calendar and a huge bank of raw content tools - covering every competing nation and the best footballers in the world - had been developed, ready for reactive executions. In Rio, a fully integrated marketing team created and executed reactive content that was live in social within seconds - and in digital and OOH within minutes. World Cup products dominated the spotlight for the duration of the tournament. The visual identity was based on the design of its World Cup Battle Pack boots. The official match ball, Brazuca, was given a voice and became a star; over 3.3 million people followed the Twitter account. We gained almost 6 million new fans across our global social channels. 967,000 hashtag uses - 3 times more than any other brand. 1.7 million brand mentions on Twitter - 22% higher than our sports brand competitors. And, crucially, became the most talked about brand at the World Cup.

The Brief

We had to connect with our audience of 14 to 19-year-olds and being an official World Cup sponsor presents obvious opportunities - most importantly, ownership of the official match ball - but also significant challenges for a sports brand. Sponsor or not, adidas’ social objective for the World Cup was a simple one, not defined by any single platform, team or outcome: become the most talked about brand at the World Cup.

Results

When the results were in, adidas won the World Cup, with: - 1,700,000 million brand mentions on twitter (22% higher than our sports brand competitors) - 967,000 hashtag uses on Twitter (3 times more than any other brand) - 32,000,000 views of our tournament content on YouTube - 246,000 subscribers added to our YouTube channel (making us the fastest growing brand on YouTube) - 5,970,000 fans added to our global social channels (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Tumblr) Crucially, adidas was the most talked about brand at the World Cup.

Execution

An hour-by-hour, platform-by-platform editorial calendar identified every possibility as early as December. The calendar and a Content Bible containing thousands of content tools became the foundations of adidas Football’s seamless World Cup storytelling. We built a world class team of football experts and obsessives, who worked for six months to create those tools, flying all over the world at a moment’s notice to shoot the best players in the world. By May, the planned content pieces were organised in the editorial calendar and a huge bank of raw content tools had been developed, ready to create reactive executions at the rippling of a net. At Posto adidas in Rio de Janeiro a fully integrated global and local real-time marketing team created and executed reactive content that was live in social within seconds - and in digital and OOH within minutes.

The Situation

FIFA World Cup 2014 was the first true social media World Cup. Fans, players, brands, publishers, influencers and even federations created a cacophony of content and conversation; new platforms and practices meant Brazil 2014 would be uncharted territory and a difficult place for a brand to make its voice heard over the noise.

The Strategy

Before the World Cup adidas revealed its lead football message: #allin or nothing was not just an attitude, but the only attitude that can lead to glory. Nothing is left to chance and everything is left out there on the pitch; the sweat and fearlessness extend from the pitch to the training ground, into the gym and through every aspect of life. We went #allin or nothing every step of the way. As soon as the World Cup draw was made in December 2013 we had an editorial calendar that mapped out every fixture, every possible story, every anticipatable opportunity, from the end of May to mid-July. Long-term planning allowed content fatigue to be avoided by following the pattern of the tournament, changing pace to take our tools to the next level just as the tension of the World Cup knockout stage began to take hold.