Brand Positioning Strategy

Football is bursting with phonies - from fake influencer bots, to fake filters on social media and fakers on the pitch.

And so, for the launch of the new ‘Exhibit pack’ of adidas Football boots, we chose to create a highly provocative campaign to take on this world of fakery; positioning adidas as a brand for “Creators Only”.

In an integrated global campaign entitled ‘No Fakers. Creators Only.’, we called out the fakers and encouraged adidas’ footballing audience to #DareToCreate, with a concept and sentiment that celebrates creativity and those who back up their style with substance. 

We recruited Leo Messi, Paul Pogba, Paulo Dybala and Gabriel Jesus, among other star adidas players, to shine a light on the kind of fakery that is spoiling the game, along with US rapper A$AP Ferg to voice the campaign.   

Pogba stars alongside Jesse Lingard as well as his own mother, Yeo, to call out the trolls online, whilst Messi puts a stop to fakers who buy and re-sell boots online without ever playing in them, and Dybala prevents fakers from forging their skills in the edit suite. 

Global Integrated Marketing Strategy

In collaboration with adidas’ media agency, we built a sophisticated content strategy designed to bring our audience closer to adidas and lead them to purchase. A nimble and reactive use of paid media ensured our budget stretched further, and influencers were harnessed to help steer our audience through the journey to purchase at the right times.  

The campaign was rolled out on social and .com, and activated across OOH and retail locations globally.