Dive Brief:

• On Feb. 9, Adidas launched a new global brand campaign featuring professional and amateur athletes that addresses how pressure detracts from their enjoyment of playing a sport, according to materials provided to Marketing Dive.
• A 90-second campaign video features Adidas endorsers Patrick Mahomes, Trinity Rodman, Lionel Messi, Linda Caicedo, Rohit Sharma, Anthony Edwards, Jude Bellingham and the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. The campaign will include other multi-platform executions.
• The brand worked with neuro11, a group of sport neuroscientists, to better understand how elite athletes manage pressure so that the company can provide tangible guidance to athletes at all levels.

Dive Insight:

Adidas, coming off better-than-expected preliminary results for fiscal 2023, is staking its claim as a brand supporting athletes of all levels. The new campaigns arrived ahead of one of the biggest sporting events in the United States, the Super Bowl, and well in advance of the biggest sporting event in the world, the 2024 Summer Olympics.

The ongoing content series features athletes across a wide range of sports talking about the pressures they face and the tools they use to overcome those feelings to perform at their highest levels. The brand will also hold events and activations for consumers throughout the year and will further support the effort through an out-of-home campaign in major cities. 

“In a year of unmissable sport, where our Adidas family will undoubtedly inspire a new wave of athletes across the globe, we have created a campaign to help young players confront a universal barrier – pressure,” said Florian Alt, vice president of global brand communications, in a release. “Our new campaign is designed to help bring the joy back to sport and equip all athletes with a simple message: You got this.”

The new commercial begins with several amateur athletes shot in black and white as they train and face off against competition. As the Queen and David Bowie hit “Under Pressure” plays, the commercial turns to color and the voice-over notes it’s “only rivalry” and “noise.” The spot shifts to professional athletes training, as the voice-over continues to break down sports into smaller components that the athletes have trained for, asserting that, “It’s only a jump.” The spot ends with the message, “You got this.”