Brief:
- Adidas Originals launched its P.O.D. System of sneakers with a music video on Instagram Stories yesterday. The "Disappearing Cinema" video featured 19-year-old rapper Curtis Roach, who introduced a new single called "Spectacular" while wearing P.O.D. shoes, according to an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
- Pigeons & Planes, a music discovery site run by pop-culture media platform Complex, showed the video for 24 hours on its @pigsandplans account, per Footwear News. Colin Tilley, a director who's worked with artists Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar and DJ Khaled, shot the video.
- The @adidasOriginals account, which has 29.1 million Instagram followers, also shows P.O.D. System shoes with shoppable tags that link to the Adidas website for direct purchases. The brand's mobile site also urges memberships to its Creators Club, a free loyalty program that offers points to receive discounts and special offers like customized shoes, per its website.
Insight:
The video for the Adidas Originals P.O.D. System line of shoes is an innovative way to reach a mobile audience of early adopters of fresh styles and trends. Pigeons & Planes has just 114,000 Instagram followers, but that audience is a niche group of people who have demonstrated their enthusiasm for discovering new music, artists and styles, and are likely more inclined to engage with the Roach song and Adidas content. "We embrace that our brand allows us to elevate creativity through product and the lens of a next generation of artists," Christine Sheehan, brand marketing director for Adidas Originals, said in a statement.
Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, used to limit video clips to 15 seconds, but the image-sharing app appears to have adjusted that cap by breaking up longer videos into segments, per Android Police. The Adidas Originals P.O.D. System story displayed 13 sections that let viewers fast-forward or rewind, along with a link to see the video on YouTube. About 400 million people use the Instagram Stories format, signaling that brands are smart to experiment with the format that's popular among social media users. Adidas rival Nike has previously found success with the format, and in August, Adidas sold out of a new style of shoe featured on the "Fashion 5 Ways" Snapchat show.
This effort comes as Adidas grows increasingly active on social media as the brand seeks to reach younger audiences that are less likely than older generations to watch TV or engage with other traditional media. Adidas has the most-shared logo on social platforms, according to a ranking by Brandwatch that placed the sportswear brand ahead of Nike, Puma and Under Armour. The Adidas logo appears in 6.5 million images shared on Twitter and Instagram each month. The athletics apparel brand, whose sales last year rose 16% to $25.4 billion, aims to expand its online presence while driving sales gains of 10-12% a year by 2020, The Financial Times reported.
