2 weeks before '14 World Cup, adidas launched its biggest communication campaign. adidas wanted a PR activation that affirmed it is still the global football leader, France’s favorite brand and illustrate the “all in or nothing” campaign with a strong message. The agency proposed that adidas France affirms this position through a powerful, surprising demonstration defining the campaign through a bold and daring launching party #allinornothing.

On May 26th, 2014, adidas France launches its campaign by completely demolishing the symbol of the darkest episode of French football: "the Knysna bus of shame" that the 2010 French team refused to leave.

The demolishment took place in the biggest scrap yards in the Parisian suburb, in front of media, influencers and a happy few. The demolishing party was the perfect stunt to make the French ready for '14 WC!

The main objectives here were to leverage the “all in or nothing” campaign with a dominant media message during the FIFA 2014 World Cup and to balance media “shockwaves” through PR storytelling.

In order to reach these PR objectives, adidas and its agency used a big stunt to increase the image of adidas as part of a wider strategy : the "all in or nothing" campaign.

Objectives were to leverage the “all in or nothing” campaign as a dominant media message in France during the 2014 World Cup and create media “shockwaves” through PR storytelling (KPIs more than 150 clippings and 3000 publications). The goal was also to make a lot of opinion leaders speak about the campaign.

To achieve these objectives, the agency imagined a big stunt supporting PR and illustrating the strong claim. An event explaining the message and the fact that adidas still support the French team even if it isn't its partner anymore and even if the French team image was low at this time, due to the 2010 World Cup.

150 journalists and bloggers present at the event

400 happy few: former football players, opinions leaders, famous journalists...

300 clippings: 20 TV, 20 radios and 11 international

More than 213 million contacts generated (154M web - 37M radio - 19M TV - 2M print)

Feedbacks: 88% of positive feedback - 7% of neutral feedback and 5% of negative feedback.

4500 publications on social networks and 70% of positive feedback.

2 twitter trending topics.

Visibility of the campaign : x8 versus average campaign.

The destroyed bus was then transformed into a piece of art by an artist and sold at auction

The event took place in the biggest scrap yards in the Parisian suburb, the night of May, 26.

The first part of the evening was meant to "prepare" the PR audience for the bus demolition via an industrial scenography and projection of adidas ads.

As an introduction of the destruction, a short movie was projected to remember the darkest period of the French football history.

The climax of the party was reached when the audience was asked to get out not knowing what will happen : the demolition, live, of the Knysna bus. This demonstration illustrated the claim and also the fact that adidas, like every French person, wanted to restart from scratch.

The campaign almost ran according to the original plan, initially we wanted to bring back the real bus but facing the authorities refusal, the agency had to recreate the very same bus.

The World Cup is a very important event for sport brands' communication, and everyone wants to emerge on the French market.

The fact that adidas lost its historical partnership with the French team, made communication more complicated in France for the brand. With the launch of its biggest worldwide communication campaign : "all in or nothing", adidas also wanted to push the campaign in PR in France with an activation that will make a stunt and affirm it is still the France’s favorite brand, a global football leader and illustrate the claim with a strong message.

We proposed that adidas France affirm its position through a powerful, surprising demonstration defining the campaign through a bold and daring launching party #allinornothing : the complete destruction of "the Knysna bus of shame".

The "all in or nothing" campaign was launched for the first time on TV on May, 24, during the Champions League Final. The second part of this campaign was the event with the demolition party on May 26th, that launched the PR campaign.

The target audience was PR and key opinion leaders specialized in sport, fashion and lifestyle markets. These targets were interested in adidas news. They came without knowing what was going to happen, just knowing that the party was meant to celebrate the launch of the new campaign. Former football players were also there to support the campaign.