NBA All Star 09
When we were pitching the adidas business as Riot, a part of our vision was the ability to create content that could live anywhere tapping multiple networks as they are designed for the distribution of media. Another part of our strategy was creating spaces where that media could be aggregated. So as the NBA Allstar weekend approaches, it’s great to see some of that vision coming to fruition.
If you are a fan of Dwight Howard, you should really check out this site we’ve designed specifically for the event. We’ll be updating it with photos, videos and even Tweets from Dwight himself. Media will be uploaded to destinations such as Flickr and YouTube and the site simply sucks it all into one place and allows you to see it at a glance while giving you the option to go directly to the source on their respective networks. And yes, the page even scrolls. A sight for sore eyes.
There’s also a more standard You Tube page with a variety of videos of Dwight if you’re just interested in the videos. Also, if you text “allstar” to 234327 you’ll get a message from Dwight letting you know what he’s up to over the weekend. Though I don’t typically watch Basketball, I’ll be following along over the weekend as well and tagging tweets with #allstar09 (feel free to do the same if you plan on watching).
And it’s nice to see the microsite gradually evolve into something less contained.
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Taking off my emerging hat, and replacing it with my weekend consumer hat – I love this. While I’m not a basketball superfan, I love it when brands understand that I don’t want my content interaction to confine me to a linear path. Don’t drag me through a maze of content, and hit me with your big clunky highway billboards along the way. Instead, do what adidas is doing – put me in control of the content. Make it easy for me to get what I want, how I want it…. finally. Maybe I will get interested in basketball, afterall.
Heidi,
Thanks. It’s a step in the right direction. This was pretty much the vision we sold in when talking to adidas, producing content that could exist anywhere—be portable yet also be aggregated.
Will be good to track this as I’m sure it will be a challenge uploading content from the weekend on the fly (the way users do), but it’s the right idea.
I’m going to get into basketball a bit more as well.
Based off of what I’ve seen, there’s very little (if any) mention of Adidas in the videos and photos.
Are the YouTube videos and Flickr photos just free media to drive to the microsite? While this is all an interesting venture (and perhaps I’m a bit premature to judge), I’m not seeing how adidas is benefitting from this when the draw is the player and hype to the slam dunk contest…
“Based off of what I’ve seen, there’s very little (if any) mention of Adidas in the videos and photos.”
Mike, there is at the end of each video, but it’s by design that the mentions are not too heavy handed.
Dwight is an adidas sponsored athlete, so this is a way to show a more candid view of the weekend in addition to the more formal product information (which there is as well).
How do you think adidas could benefit more directly?
Let’s stop the navel gazing guys… distribution of content across all platforms isn’t something to be amazed at… It’s just like buying billboards as well as radio and TV…
It’s great it’s all online and all streams come together in one place (not sure what the consumer benefit is but we’ve all been trained to believe it’s great…) but the site design sucks. The top nav bar is huge and takes over half the real estate on my screen with very little real benefit.
And where’s the interactivity? Isn’t that what digital’s all about?!!! Where can I get involved or is this just old school intrusive marketing done digitally…? Not at all impressive.
Also think adidas haven’t done very well out of this. Aside from the athletes featured, this feels like it could be for any b’ball brand… ‘cept it’s not good enough for The Other B’ball Brand…
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the feedback. Couple of thoughts. I agree that the site design could be better, the header is a bit deep—though it’s a scrolling design and that’s pretty clear.
You don’t know what the consumer benefit is to aggregating content? I’d say it’s bookmarking. I used the site myself to keep track of media as it was being updated vs. going to Twitter. then You Tube then Flickr etc. And as I shared links, I was still able to link them there.
Future initiatives will most likely be even more interactive, but not sure about the intrusive comparison—you have to find the content and choose to view/read it. interruption models actually interrupt you.
You’re also overlooking that nearly 50 pieces of content were updated/uploaded in just 4 days. That’s not something I’ve seen a lot of from brands. We’re just looking at metrics now and the teaser clip had 2,138,977 views.
Anyway, we’re learning as we go. Thanks for the thoughts.
Hey David thanks for the great post.
Personally I think that this type of campaign can do amazing things for a brand that is not always measured in numbers. Just establishing a brand as hip and cool in the eyes of the consumer.
More and more consumers are able to look right through marketing ploys as exactly that. However, when you do a campaign like this and don’t overly push the brand it makes it feel more like you are giving something back to the consumer and not just trying to push a product on them.
As far as the site design, I don’t mind the large header at all I think people are certainly getting more and more web savy to be able to figure out different lay outs and designs quickly. Especially the target market of a campaign like this. Personally I find it relieving when I come across a site that isn’t the same as every other design out there.
Greg, thanks for your feedback as well. We’re learning and will do better. Listen, Learn Adapt but philosophically, I agree with what you say and that’s why we’re following this approach.