Our challenges were to launch two new football products and to strengthen consumer preference for the adidas brand. We decided to launch the products by introducing a Predator vs f50 rivalry concept and based our creative activities on the insight that there is significant overlap between the football audience and the online gaming audience.

We brought this rivalry to life through immersive digital channels. This was achieved by enabling users to choose to play for either the Predator or the f50 team in a 3-D multi-player game. This enabled them to take part in the rivalry and experience the two products.

20,000 matches are currently being played on average every day, creating 200,000 minutes of exposure to the brand. Total sessions to date are just under 2.0 million with 54.2% of players choosing the Predator team and 45.8% choosing the f50 side. During the tournament phase these figures are expected to double.

We adapted a successful online multi-player football game (powerchallenge) to embody the Predator vs f50 rivalry. Players could choose the Predator team for more precision and shooting power or the f50 team for greater speed and flair.

An online competition with prizes including the chance to play with adidas stars for real or to win free pieces of equipment continued the rivalry concept while in-game product advertising increased the profile of the two products.

The key football audience for the Predator and f50 products consisted of mainly males between 15 and 24 years old who play or watch football regularly.

We initially reached this target through the 1.5m unique members already playing powerchallenge online and widened the audience by developing a trailer that was placed on viral sites, the powerchallenge homepage as well as the adidas football homepage. We also used PR to create a digital buzz.