ADIDAS GLITCH

TitleADIDAS GLITCH
BrandADIDAS FOOTBALL
Product/ServiceADIDAS GLITCH
Category A02. Durable Consumer Goods
Entrant IRIS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation IRIS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation 2 POSSIBLE Seattle, USA
Production IRIS London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production 2 POSSIBLE Seattle, USA
Credits
Name Company Position
Michael Barrett iris Global Planning Direct
Laura Jane Justice iris Senior Producer
Iain Robson iris Creative Director
Mariana Lobos iris Senior Designer
Nico Tuppen iris Managing Director
Simon Yoxall iris Board Director
Tarik Bedevi iris Senior Art Director
Ric Blank iris Senior Copywriter
Jasmina Cigoja iris Account Executive

The Campaign

GLITCH is both a brand new football boot concept AND a brand new route to market for adidas. The product itself is completely different, featuring an inner shoe for perfect fit and a laceless outer skin that offers perfect ball control, but is also interchangeable allowing players to express their own style. This new football boot is ONLY available for purchase through a dedicated mobile app, which was designed and built to make GLITCH a must-have for the new football stars - urban street players whose freestyle play is as dependent on the style as it is the score. This platform opens to purchase through special one-use referral codes. You literally cannot get your hands on these boots unless you are invited by another GLITCH player, adding exclusivity and creating a community around the product – a community fed and managed by influencers, not marketers.

Creative Execution

We intentionally started small, with a core group of influencers and urban footballers in London. This allowed the community to grow gradually and organically. By making it exclusive and limited in number, the customer experience was more personal. Players could book an appointment to try the boots on the pitch, joined by influencers and fitting advisors. We fed our audience’s desire for instant gratification by making the process of purchasing the boots quick and seamless. The mobile app allowed boots to be bought on the move and delivered within 4 hours, anywhere in London. There was 24 hour chat support from the same influencers who helped build the community. The app held key customer data and preferences, allowing players to order fresh new designs as they are released. And it facilitated a three-way dialogue between the brand, the influencers and its customers.

Results

GLITCH trended immediately and boots were in demand from day one. Players took to social media begging for referral codes from their contacts. We made it into the ‘HOT this week’ list in the Apple app store in our first week. We even saw access codes being sold on eBay. Despite the controlled release, the GLITCH app has had over 107K downloads. The codes seeded by our first influencers had a 75% conversion rate to a boot sale and we’ve continued to see an 89% redemption rate on codes being activated. All without a scrap of media spend, zero advertising or sponsorship & no celebrity endorsement. GLITCH transformed one of football's most recognisable brands into one of its hottest start-ups. It turned the industry upside down and created a completely new relationship between a brand and consumer.

A mobile e-commerce app with CRM at the core. You can only book fittings or purchase the product with an invite code. All interactions happen within a custom built platform. As a result the product is CRM driven from launch onwards, allowing the brand to continuously collect data and learn the preferences of their users, whilst still delivering value. We offered them a community and rewarded them for maintaining it.

Football is changing – players are growing up playing in small squads and urban academies. Their idols aren’t premiership players, but freestylers: players that can literally do the impossible and get respect for their style of play as well as their ability to win. This audience isn’t watching TV, following Drogba or reading magazines. They’re online on their phone, watching YouTube, learning tricks, sharing their skills and finding opportunities to play. They can’t be won over by the usual marketing mix, we had to find a new way to connect. We launched without any media spend or ads, no big star player and no shops or online stores. Putting the influencers and our mobile technology at the heart of the strategy, hosting unique and highly relevant content, created for them, by peers, influencers and home-grown football talent in their city. Restricted by special invite codes, that weren’t available to everyone.