My favorite soccer advertising campaign of all time

I'm a huge soccer fan and love advertising. So, needless to say, the World Cup is my favorite event. Every four years, I not only get awesome soccer but I also get awesome ads connected to the game. This year we got the amazing Nike campaign, Write the Future. While I'm energized by this campaign (I do think it is one of the top ones), I have to admit that I do not think it is the "best" soccer campaign ever created despite all the coverage claiming that it is.

The best soccer advertising campaign I've seen is the Adidas +10 campaign. This campaign was created for the 2006 World Cup, before the idea of social media and audience engagement were as popular within the advertising/marketing community. What makes this campaign great are two specific things. First, it is inspirational. Everyone can relate to the two kids who are playing a game and imagining their heroes are playing along with them. They get to choose their team, not just see these stars playing on a TV screen. They are the captains, not the followers. The stars of this ad are Jose and Pedro and the stars these ads usually focus on are the sidekicks. The +10 campaign taps into the imagination of the "everyman," unlike the Nike "Write Your Future" campaign which focuses on the dreams/aspirations and outcomes of the superstars. To quote 180 Amsterdam's co-executive creative director, Andy Fackrell:
“The Adidas commercial for the FIFA World Cup is based on our own childhood memory… After watching a football game, we used to run outside, recreate our own teams and re-play the match we had just seen. We tried to make every little kid’s dream come alive – getting to pick your own team and being able to choose from the world’s biggest football stars!”

Second, it was the first campaign I remember tapping into the now popular idea of audience engagement. The +10 idea was open-ended enough to function well in the new media space in 2006: video shot exclusively for web, asset downloads, UGC video sweepstakes, blogs, integrating meaningfully with the MySpace community (definitely still a huge player in 2006). They truly maximized on content distribution and user-generated content to enhance the grassroot aspects of the campaign.

Here are some quick screenshots of the interactive site (courtesy of The World of Advertising blog) as well as one of the TV spots. The +10 Adidas campaign was an integrated global advertising campaign including global and local versions for TV, cinema, print, outdoor, point-of-sale, public relations and online.

Do I get points for that?

Lately, it seems like every time I'm on Twitter I see a post where a person states what he or she did for the day and then proceeded to award his or herself points: "I'm finally getting my office cleaned up. It is way past time that I get things organized. #dapts +200." Additionally, a number of mobile apps are springing up, allowing users to gain "points" for checking in to certain locations (a personal favorite for this is CauseWorld which allows you to collect and donate karma points to certain causes). I find these trends very interesting.

#Dapts or Daily Achievement points are all about scoring points for "doing what you do." So, what does that mean? According to the Daily Achievements site, you can give yourself or your friends points for "anything from eating a sandwich to winning an Olympic medal in curling." Um, okay. Cool. So, I can get whatever amount of points for whatever I feel like. That's appealing, but arbitrary. Oh, and you can "win badges by performing certain tasks. New badges are added all the time to give you ways to bug your terrible friends." Definitely an interesting concepts, but it doesn't seem like the same activity would be rated equally by all so the system appears to have some flaws. However, #Dapts have become increasing popular which leads to certain questions about what all of this means.

Have we become obsessed with scoring points for our daily activities? Does everything we do need to be scored? Are daily activities a contest? If so, how can these point scoring systems be used to change situations such as getting people to eat more fruits and vegetables for more points, to donate money to causes for more points, to generate more sales of certain products?

Here's some thoughts from a friend, Jordan Smith: "You'll earn 30 points for being a baby on the internet, but those points are worth far more than your self respect."

And, here's an awesome podcast from DICE 2010 by Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, diving into the idea of points-based gaming:

Oh, and I'm giving myself #dapts + 500 for writing this post ;)

What do Google TV ads mean for advertising?

Earlier today I saw the video below about Google TV ads, a new service that "makes it easy for anyone to buy and measure national cable television advertising." As illustrated in the video by Slate ad critic, Seth Stevenson, people to upload their own ad to the site and then buy air time on various networks. The ad is then played on TV. Of course, a person's budget will depend on the amount of air time one can buy and the time slot, but this definitely is an interesting idea. While I do not see this service significantly undermining ad agencies or media buyers, it adds previously unavailable access to media buying on a national scale for any interested party. While I see this as a potential positive, I question some of the ramifications. If anyone can upload any video and just buy the time, will the service end up as an outlet for someone like a hate group to advertise their agenda? Is there any way of monitoring the videos being uploaded? Should there be?

Yes, Football=Love in the new Puma campaign

As is fairly apparent from some earlier posts, I'm a sucker for soccer ad campaigns. I'm also a huge fan of everything done by Droga5. I still think their bike version of Guitar Hero, "Bike Hero," was one of the more brilliant pieces of alt advertising I'd seen. I'm a huge fan of the integrated campaign they created for the Unicef Tap Water Project and I still have fun playing on the Puma Lift website. So, it probably won't come as a shock that I love Droga5's latest Puma campaign, Love=Football campaign.

This year Valentine's Day falls on a soccer game day. So as part of the Love=Football campaign, Droga5 and Puma decided to help you send Valentine's Day wishes to the one you love. After all, they know where your heart will really be.


The brilliance of the campaign lies in the ridiculous, yet true to the soccer culture, idea of a bunch of tough guys singing what could be a fight song together. However, the traditional British soccer "hooligans" (there's an Italian soccer fan version as well if you want some variety) are actually singing a cheesy love song by Savage Garden to express their love. It's a perfect parody.

For those of you less familiar with the culture, here's a scene from the movie, Green Street Hooligans (a personal favorite movie), that illustrates the idea.
Definitely impressive work by Droga5 for Puma yet again

Update: For those Rugby fans out there, Droga5 and Puma have followed up the soccer "hardchorus" with a rugby theme. In honor of the Six Nations Cup, Puma introduces the Chabal bear, clearly the perfect Valentine's Day gift. After all, love also equals rugby :)

ParkShark: A practical app for city drivers

It seems like every day tons of new apps show up. Some are fun. Some are cool, but very few offer a tangible, practical benefit. ParkShark is one of the few.

I've lived in a number of cities where finding a parking spot is next to impossible. Driving into downtown Boston or really anywhere in Boston/Cambridge and finding a parking space is one of the most frustrating experiences a person can have. Washington D.C. was hardly better. I remember one weekend day during the winter I needed to go into my office in downtown D.C. and naively decided to drive. After two hours of circling the Farragut Square and Logan Circle areas looking for any parking spot, I gave up and drove home. Even now, in Minneapolis, finding a parking spot can be a challenge.

What I like about ParkShark is that it attempts to offer a solution. According to Creativity-Online's write-up, "independent software developers Peter Cetinski and Dimitriy Frenkel hope to temper your road rage—and help the environment too, with ParkShark, an app that promises to land you a parking spot, as soon as you need it. And it works anywhere in the world, not just Manhattan." The purpose of this app is to "optimize the use of limited parking resources, reduce pollution, reduce congestion and eliminate the frustration that comes with searching for a parking space." I'm not sure about anyone else, but that sounds like a dream come true to me.

Currently, ParkShark is only available for the iPhone. However, there are plans to develop Android and Blackberry versions.

Happy New Year

I know it's a few days late, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year by posting a reel by one of my favorite digital agencies, North Kingdom. I find their work inspiring (I already wrote about their awesome advergame, Teamgeist, for Adidas). I hope you enjoy this reel as much as I do. I can't wait to see what comes next from these guys!

North Kingdom Showreel 2009 from Designchapel on Vimeo.