Sports brands typically use media such as TV, print, social media and in-store to promote their messaging. Adidas NEO decided to use video gaming, the No. 1 culprit that “steals” students away from sports, to actively encourage sports participation, sound crazy?

Daily, Chinese students play video games, use TikTok heavily, and have access to school gymnastics.

Adidas NEO turned these 3 occasions into a holistic media experience to relaunch an exercise routine like a video game, by blurring the virtual worlds of video games and social media with real world of gymnastics, successfully making sports more mentally and physically accessible.

Students in China have a low daily uptake of sporting activity. Adidas NEO, a brand targeted at high school and college students wanted to engage more students to do sports. But doing sports is a luxury for Chinese students due to increasing academic pressure as they grow up. In their senior years in high school, PE classes are often "hijacked" by Math and English teachers, not to mention the extra homework over the weekends.

This casts a shadow on students adopting a healthy lifestyle as well the Adidas Neo brand and business.

With this challenge, the task was to encourage students to adopt a more active sports lifestyle enabled through Adidas NEO.

In China’s schoolyard, the morning broadcast gymnastics is a daily routine for students, but most of the time they muddle through it or skip it. This 71-year-old China school tradition sounds and feels like a 71-year-old, with old fashioned music and rigid moves. It’s no surprise that only 12.5% of high school students do sports daily. (Paixun Teenagers Health Index 2021).

Another “culprit” to sports participation is video games, the go-to student entertainment to cope with academic pressure. (QuestMobile Chinese Gaming Research 2021)

So we created a collision between the two; old-fashioned broadcast gymnastics and video gaming. We partnered with Just Dance, a popular dance video game to feature the school gymnastics routine in-game! We composed the song, designed unique game characters in dynamic school uniforms, remixed the traditional broadcast gymnastics beat and tempo, and launched it at the end of August, the back-to-school season.

The target audience are students in high school and college (15 to 22 years old).

School broadcast gymnastics and videos games are things that Chinese students spend time on daily, so we turned these two real life occasions into a media opportunity to enable students to adopt a more active sports lifestyle.

With TikTok and Adidas NEO stores as amplification platforms, we were able to bridge the virtual worlds of video gaming and social media, to the real world of broadcast gymnastics, into a combined and entertaining sports experience for the audience.

On Just Dance, we created the in-game track Youth is Calling with the new moves, unique characters in dynamic outfits, remixed soundtrack, and remodeled school setting, allowing students to move along with the upbeat rhythm and strive for the highest score.

To promote the collaboration, on China’s TikTok we created the hashtag challenge #youthiscalling and worked with 14 influencers. 4 episodes of student life-moments encouraged students to do the NEO dance with tailored stickers and filters. Offline, students could do the dance in-store to win gifts. For the first time, Just Dance went from the console into social media and in-store with a curated experience for the younger generation.

The game lauched during the back-to-school season from 27th August to 6th September. The addictive soundtrack, gymnastics moves, TikTok challenge, and activation across 95 stores made it widely viewed and shared, and got our youthful audience moving.

The campaign got students participating and increased in-store traffic by 8% and sales by 11% compared to the non-campaign period.

The track “Youth is Calling” reached No.1 branded and No.2 overall on the Just Dance China track list.

The campaign went viral beyond TikTok with 42 influencers across social platforms spontaneously sharing content including Bilibili (the biggest GEN Z community), Weibo and Red.

Views of branded and UGC videos passed 450M, with 8M likes and 1M comments across platforms.

News media with 51 posts achieved 5.2M RMB in PR value.

Popularity went beyond the game. People across ages danced along with consoles, on social platforms, in-store and beyond. Some schools even replaced the old gymnastics with ours.

As a brand that believes that sports can change lives, Adidas Neo successfully got people moving, making sports more mentally and physically appealing to Chinese student lifestyles.

Students in China have limited time to do sports and the situation gets worse in high school senior years because their PE classes are often "hijacked" by Math or English teachers.

Subsequently, such heavy pressure requires ultra-relaxation, so video games naturally beat sports during student’s precious leisure time. So playing video games for escaping from the pressure has become a social behavior in China among the young. According to QuestMobile June 2021, youngsters, who are under 24, use at least 2 game apps on average. Additionaly, among all the "gamers" in China, kids aged 14-18 have the highest TGI towards video games, followed by 19-24 year olds.

Since school gymnastics and videos games are two things Chinese students spend time on daily, instead of using conventional media for messaging, we turned these two real life occasions into one media opportunity that enables students to adopt a more active sports lifestyle.