ADIDAS GLITCH

TitleADIDAS GLITCH
BrandADIDAS FOOTBALL
Product/ServiceADIDAS GLITCH
Category C03. Social Community Building / Management
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 a brand new football boot concept AND a brand new route to market. The product itself features 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. The designs, the name, the launch – every single facet was co-created with football influencers. They were involved from the beginning. They owned it. They cared. At launch they were given unique referral codes that gave fans access and kick started the community. They made the first bits of content for the app, attended the exclusive launch party and took it upon themselves to create buzz around its release. And they still play an active role in running it - attending fitting sessions on the pitch with new customers, manning the support channel and continuing to contribute content to drive the GLITCH community.

Execution

This new football boot is ONLY available for purchase through a mobile app, designed and built to make the boot a must-have for the new football stars. Aimed at urban street players whose freestyle play is as dependent on the style as it is the score. We intentionally started small, with a core group of influencers and urban footballers in London. This allowed the community to grow gradually and organically. Influencers were empowered and highly engaged throughout, actively helping to shape the community by deciding who became a part of it and contributing towards the customer support and homepage sections of the app with peer-to-peer advice, product demos and promotional User Generated Content. There were reward and value exchange mechanics built into the app too, encouraging interaction and engagement to exist beyond a single purchase with free skins and extra referral codes on offer for the most active users.

The main trade publications in the world of football were interested - Urban Pitch, Soccer Bible, Footyheadlines and COMPLEX all ran stories before and after launch and continue to release updates and reviews as new skins are released. The focus was on quality not quantity - our audience wasn't reading national newspapers or watching TV, they were on social media, reading football blogs, connecting on social media and looking at niche websites created by their peers. So those were our main targets - consumer led blogs or social channels and football specific outlets. We started small and kept the release controlled. Despite this, GLITCH trended immediately and boots were in demand. Despite the controlled release, the GLITCH app has had over 107K downloads. Boot sales were restricted, so 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. 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 achieved without a scrap of media spend, zero advertising or sponsorship and 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.

The Situation

GLITCH avoids classic channels and focuses on Mobile and influencer-led Social activity to prompt interest, drive awareness and generate buzz around a new product launch. We involved our audience right from the beginning, using the power of influencers social channels to spark the interest of our audience and the trade press, who then reported on a new product with a completely new purchase channel. You can only buy them through a mobile e-commerce app and you can only book fittings or purchase a pair with an invite code. All interactions happen within a custom-built platform. There were NO traditional ads.

The Strategy

Around 90 young players were invited by the adidas brand to help pre-test the product, critiquing and improving it at every stage right up to the launch. Approximately two dozen players are now working for the project, either by providing customer service support, attending fitting sessions or being involved in content and product creation. Adidas call it an ‘open source’ philosophy. The whole project is based on the belief that you can only create genuinely cool products if you bring in creative thinkers from a whole range of different fields, merging agencies and brand owners with influencers and players, letting them influence the product by giving them scope to develop their ideas. The app sits at the heart of this community – both a vehicle of content and a mobile eCommerce platform, it attracts and connects likeminded individuals over a common interest, without being too pushy or salesy.