Adidas Secures A Marketing Clean Sweep At World Cup

German sportswear brand adidas has secured victory on and off the pitch at the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil by outperforming its competition in real-time marketing with its ‘all in or nothing’ campaign.

Over the duration of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, the world’s number one football brand has been the most talked about brand with an increase of 5.8M followers across all major social media platforms.

More than any other sports brand.

adidas Group CEO Herbert Hainer said: “This World Cup has been an outstanding success for adidas and clearly underlines our position as the world’s leading football brand. From having both finalists, the winning team and all three adidas golden award winners to being the most talked about brand in social media, we were able to dominate the tournament on and off the pitch.”

Key headlines relating to the adidas all in or nothing campaign include:

• 1.59M conversations – Most talked about brand related to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, according to Sysomos tracked brand mentions in combination with World Cup specific phrases, hashtags and hashflags across Twitter, news sites, blogs, forums, Tumblr posts and publicly available status updates on Facebook
• 5.8M – Increase in followers across all major social media platforms during the World Cup period considering global and WC relevant brand accounts like Team Messi, @adidasfootball, @brazuca and @adidassoccer according to Simply Measured
• 14.5% – Fastest growing football community in social media, according to Simply Measured
• +38M – Most viewed sports brand on YouTube; based on videos published during the tournament period, according to YouTube Analytics and Simply Measured
• 2.98M (603%) – Growth of @brazuca Twitter handle in the tournament period, a Simply Measured analysis found
• 917K – Most used brand hashtag on Twitter (#allin), Sysomos found considering all branded football related #allin mentions during the World Cup period

adidas global brand marketing director football, Tom Ramsden added: “We always knew that real time communications would be the best way for adidas to win the World Cup. We are so engrained and connected to the sport through our products, players and federations, there is never a moment in football where we are absent and, I believe, our knowledge and understanding of the game means we are the most engaging brand with football fans.”

From its base in Rio, “Posto adidas” (Posto is the name given to local landmarks along the beaches of Rio de Janeiro), the adidas marketing team posted a combination of planned, anticipated and reactive content to drive its conversation online with football fans. Focussing its campaign on share of voice and reactive moments, results show that adidas had 917K mentions of #allin on Twitter – more than three times as much as any other brand during the tournament.

adidas Football had the largest social media community growth (across sports brands) throughout the tournament, showing a 14.5% increase. Share of voice across all key social media platforms in the tournament was also 22 percentage points higher than the nearest sports brand competitor.

Brazuca, the Official Match Ball of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, has also been one of the major successes of the tournament. Its @brazuca Twitter handle has been the largest growing account on the platform during the World Cup tournament growing over 2.98M (603%).

@brazuca was also one of the most engaged Twitter handles compared to other brands in the sports category during the tournament, with 530K user interactions according to a Simply Measured analysis of retweets, replies, favorites and account mentions around @brazuca.

The adidas Battle Pack series of boots – designed specifically for this FIFA World Cup also performed outstandingly, both on and off the pitch. The adidas adizero f50 was the highest scoring boot of the tournament, with 46 goals, including three of the top scorers in the tournament wearing the adidas adizero f50 boot (Rodriguez 6, Müller 5 and Messi 4).

At this FIFA World Cup, players wearing adidas had a 30% higher rate of goal scoring compared to players wearing next best competitor’s products.

Online, #f50 was the most used football footwear hashtag on Twitter during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™ tournament with 257K mentions, according to Sysomos.

Markus Baumann, senior vice president, adidas Football said: “The World Cup has been an outstanding success for adidas football. Once again we will reach our record global sales target of two billion euros in 2014 and have dominated performance on the field of play.”

In addition to the social media successes, adidas also outperformed all competitors on the field of play:

• Two adidas finalists including the winners, Germany
• adidas Golden Ball – Leo Messi
• adidas Golden Boot – James Rodriguez
• adidas Golden Glove – Manuel Neuer
• Most tournament assists – Juan Cuadrado
• FIFA Fair Play Award – Colombia
• FIFA Team of the Tournament – eight adidas players out of 11

Claus-Peter Mayer, VP global sports marketing, adidas Football said: “We are delighted with the all overall performance of our players and federations throughout the tournament. With the winning team, best player, top goal scorer and goalkeeper we underline our dominance on the pitch and in global football.”