Indiantelevision.com Team

(14 February 2008 7:30pm)

MUMBAI: Adidas is launching its first global campaign for Adidas Originals lifestyle brand. Developed by 180, the campaign rallies round a series of web videos of people from art, music and athletics.

The first effort, which launches this week, spotlights Adidas' founder, Adi Dassler, in his workshop in Germany. This is also the first time in the company's 60-year history that its founder has been brought to the fore in Adidas advertising.

The campaign is supported by print, TV, in-cinema and web ads leading consumers to the microsite within adidas.com.

Pierre Wendling, 180's digital director, explains that the agency didn't employ digital animation to resurrect Dassler. Rather, Wendling and his team recreated Dassler's office in miniature, down to scale model versions of his desk, furniture, tools, and accessories, with ambient street sounds, and radio playing songs of the day in the background, reports mediapostpublications.com.

"We want to tell you simple story of Adi Dassler, that was the goal of the site, to be immersive, and keep it simple," says Wendling.

Dario Nucci, senior creative director at the agency, says that one of the goals of the initiative is to differentiate Adidas Originals from Adidas' performance division, whose tag line is "Impossible is Nothing." The originals tend to have a retro feel. The logo is not the three-stripe symbol for Adidas Performance, but the Adidas trefoil logo introduced in 1971.

He adds that the first of five films won't be product-focused, while the rest will, each touting the new Originals apparel line.

One of the forthcoming films in the series, "Sons of the City," will tout a range of Adidas Originals product while highlighting reggae from Jamaica; the Motown sound; Memphis, and New Orleans.

Each film ends with the Adidas trefoil transforming into a video sphere on which films about the featured artists and athletes are arrayed, with the "Celebrate Originality" theme, informs Wendling.