Adidas, the kit sponsor for the Team GB for the Olympics challenged the agency to create a major media campaign to celebrate the Olympics, and communicate the brand’s values as fun, human, energetic and authentic.

But Adidas’ most famous ambassador and best-loved football star was left out of the team. Adidas was faced with the problem of how to involve David Beckham and make the Team GB replica kit the biggest selling apparel in the UK.

Following on the PR success of Adidas’ photo-booth campaign photographing athletes collecting their kit, another photo-booth was created near the Olympic Village. 60 unsuspecting sports fans were recruited and invited to show their support for Team GB. Proudly wearing their branded Team GB kit in the photo booth, they were astonished to find David Beckham joining their photographic shoot.

The fans’ emotional response was filmed creating a lasting memory, and put online. Using broadcast, traditional, digital and social media to drive traffic to the film, we generated 160 items of press coverage including 18 pieces of broadcast coverage, items on 128 online media titles, 6,000 mentions with the #takethestage hashtag and 3.3 YouTube views accompanied by 47,000 shares. Total reach over 1.5 million.

The activity was responsible for a large part of Adidas delivering unprecedented sales with the replica kit the biggest selling apparel in the UK ever with £100M of kit sold by the middle of the games and made the Team GB sweatband the ‘must have’ piece of the Games apparel.

To continue the ‘Take the Stage’ campaign designed for the Olympics by staging an unforgettable story for the media.

To create a positive and wide-reaching media impact for Adidas in a week dominated by LOCOG.

To communicate the brand values as fun, human, authentic, energetic.

To reach the core target audience (14-19 year olds) and turn them into brand ambassadors.

Use our insight of David’s loyalty to his fans as a way to connect them emotionally to Adidas whilst making the Team GB sweatband famous.

To reach a wider UK audience, helping them to associate Adidas with Team GB success.

Knowledge/consideration: This allowed Adidas to take ownership of the Olympics conversation in that crucial week and enabled significant cut-through for the ‘Take the Stage’ campaign with a total media reach of 1.5 billion. We secured 160 items of press coverage, 18 pieces of broadcast coverage, print coverage across all UK national newspapers; 128 online media titles reaching 916 million. 3.3 million YouTube views with 47,000 shares alongside 6,000 campaign mentions quoting the hashtag #takethestage on twitter.

Output/awareness: A significant spike in social media was created for Adidas and the ‘Take the Stage’ campaign, demonstrating the creativity was strong and perfectly pitched. The surprise element received universal approval while the emotive footage dominated the UK news agenda.

Action/business impact: The activity significantly helped Adidas sell out of kit half-way through the Games with £100M of kit sold and made the Team GB sweatband the biggest selling Olympic product for Adidas.

A photo-booth was set up in the Westfield Shopping Centre right by the Olympic Park.

60 unsuspecting sports fans were recruited and invited to the photo-booth. Here they were photographed wearing their Team GB kit in support of their national side.

They did not expect David Beckham, international sports icon and local hero, to join them in their photo sessions.

The fans’ enormous surprise and delight was captured, with a compilation tape created and photographs taken and put online and proactively sold to the media across broadcast, print, digital and social media as a lasting memory of an emotional Olympics moment.

It was an unforgettable moment for a group of people whose emotional responses helped drive huge media interest, publicising their role in the film through social spaces, ensuring the video went viral.

With LOCOG dominating the news agenda the week before the Games started, it was difficult for Olympic sponsors to get cut through.

On the eve of the Olympics, the agency was tasked with creating a huge media impact to create a buzz about adidas and its sponsorship of Team GB kit without using any Olympic branding requiring LOCOG approval.

adidas wanted to celebrate the Olympics and use brand ambassador, David Beckham. A sporting and national icon, known to be loyal to his fans and popular with the media, however, he was left out of Team GB. adidas was faced with the problem of how to involve David Beckham and make the Team GB replica kit the biggest selling sports apparel in the UK.

To create a major media campaign to promote Adidas using David Beckham as the surprise element.

The filmed material created by the surprise would then be communicated to build brand awareness.

The communication tools would be split into three sections according to which media was targeted for telling the ‘Take the Stage’ story.

- Broadcast news – B-roll footage was shared within hours of the event

- Print and online news correspondents were provided with a specific set of tools to allow them to cover activity as news rather than brand-led content

- Gossip/celebrity news websites and social channels were identified as crucial to making the activity famous.

Social media was used to reach the core target audience (14-19 year olds)