NEW ADIDAS AD=BEST EDITING I’VE SEEN IN A WHILE
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A0jVkFs3C4
(Thanks, K.)
I also think Adidas have done a very good job of melding their sport’n’entertainment vibe without making either side look shit.
And the kidz will love it.
I agree. it’s superB.
speaking for the old men. i love it too.
they’re really kicking at the heals of nike now.
and ending on a nose bleed. brave. confident.
Isn’t driving music and lots of action something of a cliche by now?
If I’m nit-picking, then the music isn’t my bag, but aside from that, it’s fucking ace!
Anyone involved want to post some credits? Director / agency. Was it Sid Lee?
love it too. from what ive seen (which is fuck all), it seems to be more of a battle between puma and adidas. nike is somewhere else. have to say adidas is much more appealing to me. but then it always has been.
If music and action are a cliche then save us all.
It was Sid Lee. Beyond that, dunno.
Don’t care what the old men and planning prophets say. Fucking love this. Go on addidas kick shit out of the after hours athelete
nice but not as nice as puma ‘after hours athlete’, that had an idea in it as well as being well crafted. So puma for me. think if you did a poll as well Ben puma would win by a landslide 72%.
Puma was poetic.
Prefer this to Puma. More than just a party.
Damn that’s good.
We were talking about this too this morning – it’s very good isn’t it? Simple, beautifully crafted, visceral.
I think it’s like a ‘Can I Kick It’ 20 years on.
All in the tone.
People – this is really, really average. It’s a mood film. There’s little narrative, and none of the wit that made nike’s ads great (in their day and occasionally now). More importantly it shows a lack of focus as a business. Their Originals category is kicking ass. Their performance category is not. In fact it’s tanking. By merging them, it dilutes the Originals business. House Party was a cool spot as it integrated lifestyle with sports stars in a compelling way. But all under the simple Originals banner. I can see the strategy.
Here, I’m not sure they know what they are supposed to be. Especially with the ‘all in’ line. We’re everything. Which is basically every crap client brief we ever got. ‘can you say we do everything and appeal to everyone please’. Not unique. Not provocative. It probably reflects what is going on at a senior client level ‘let’s put him in, and her, and that top, and that thing, and definitely Beckham and that shoe’.
At the end of this, I don’t think Adi has made me think differently about their brand. It’s made the Orginals a little less cool and – some excellent editing and shots apart – is a very average piece of work. If I was Nike I wouldn’t be worried. This isn’t a business changing piece of communication. I still don’t know what problem it was trying to answer – and why advertising was the answer. It’s a wankfest for a production company and the agency with little humanity, imagination or wit. Although I bet the shoot was awesome.
It was directed by Romain Gavras, and the track is from Justice’s forthcoming album.
Has everyone gone mad. Agree with Steve. Seriously. Its fucking boring. A 2 minute mood film to make the client all wet. 30 seconds was enough before I had the urge to press FF.
I am surprised you think its good BEn after your post on mod films becoming ads!
okay, steve. i take it all back. i hate it. now give me that free pair of nikes. please?!
I think a mood film needs a few choice bons mots to be really shit.
If this was intercut with captions that said:
‘When the only one you’re playing against is yourself…’
‘When giving up is harder than going on…’
‘When every part of you screams stop…’
etc., it would be a real mood film.
Why is this worse than Can I Kick it?
Both are/were beautifully shot expressions of feeling that got the tone spot-on.
If i went to my CD and said “i’ve got a great idea for the new adidas ad, what we do is have loads of shots of people doing sports and stuff and have some music over the top of it”. He would say “Get the fuck out of my office and never come back you cretin”.
What Steve said. Oh, and the music’s shit.
So would any decent CD.
I have a little feeling that’s not what the Sid Lee creatives did.
im pretty sure ‘all in’ can be a lot of things. everyone is welcome, passion, unity, togetherness, brotherliness… along those lines, instead of wanting to please everyone. and i do love that idea. its like i had thought it up myself.
agreed, it reminds a lot of the originality street, but it is much more energetic, fighting but having fun, and pain, together blah…
i dont see how this would damage originals. anyway, gotta run now……. to get some really unhealthy food!
sorry you don’t get it steve.
but i think the idea that these athletes and superstars go ‘all in’ as in ‘give it there all’ ‘put everything on the line’ is a great attitudinal and modern twist on the thirty year old ‘just do it’.
as a piece of film it’s great. as a platform for them it’s great. and need i remind you that most of the great nike work is essentially this. attitude. well crafted. but at least this has a modern starting point. and i think they may well be worried.
This is my favourite recent(ish) Nike ad.
It also has no ‘idea’ but it’s fucking brilliant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55BZ2gSsSmY
Anon 20 would doubtless believe that the creatives had written a script that said ‘some people play American Football to the music from Last of the Mohicans’.
@Steve. Er..you seem to know a fair bit about the sector. Maybe the newspapers are full of stories about bits of the Adidas range ‘tanking’? Are you perhaps a little closer to the category than the rest of us…?
This spot has attitude. That might just be all it needs to have.
At least the Nike film’s got an idea behind it. Creatives seem to have forgotten the fact that ‘creativity’ means doing something original. Far too much of what we see these days is derivative or a direct rip-off and it’s not enough to say “we did it better than they did”. That’s just a lazy cop-out.
Mary – I’m not nike.
But I’ve worked on the nike business. And the adi one. And am a big Adi fan actually. I suppose I just speak from knowing a lot about the nature of the business and how these giants try to compete with each other.
Gout-legs – you’ve proved my point. A new twist on just do it….wow, that’s basically saying, ‘can you do what they’ve been doing for 30 years’. Not a good business strategy. Find something powerful, unique and provocative to say and DO. I agree, the best work is attitude, feeling, emotion…but a slightly weaker Just Do It ain’t it. And, yes, an idea can be a feeling….we want people to feel ‘angry’ or ‘proud’ can be the idea. Executing that is tough – as we all know.
Ben – you’re right, it’s not pure mood…but you know what I mean (fyi – that script you wrote above is probably being used right now by someone in america for an upcoming car ad).
Imagine if Adidas had come out and done something really scary for their performance business. Something that didn’t play by the ‘rules’ of the category. For creative people you all seem weirdly happy that this conforms to the creative status quo.
Anyway, it’s not THAT terrible. It’s just not THAT good. Maybe we’re just not used to seeing good stuff anymore and anything with some decent music and some nice shots gets a fucking Pencil.
Love to all.x
Nike human chain is way better than that leave nothing drivel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU23QVETHaM
Hang on… Yes… This just in… Nike ‘Human Chain’ officially makes no sense and sucks big fat elephant balls.
That is all.
steve, i had the misfortune to work on a sports brand that wasn’t nike.
and had plenty of time to appreciate that nike said the only thing worth saying in the category. and adidas were smart enough to realize this at some point and basically start saying the same thing with varying degrees of success.
they all have athletes that they have to feature in their ads. everyone’s trying to be cool.
there’s bound to be overlap in communications both content wise and stylistically. wieden just does it better.
did i just say “wieden just does it”?
can you do what that successful business as been doing for 30 years but make it better and more relevant to a modern audience.
sounds like every brief i’ve ever worked on.
and sector aside. it’ll make the uth google the ad and forward it on. it’ll work, but shame they don’t have enough money to do lots more.
steve, the ironic thing is that i own two pair of pumas and one pair of adidas which i havent worn since years. nike? none. so speaking of being fan it would be puma. but then im not a fan of anything. ironic eh. anyway, adidas just does appeal to me. and i loathe, really loathe celebrity brand shit. especially beckham.
from the sidelines, it does not look as if adidas and nike are competing against each other. they can battle over market share as much as they like.
i think the spot does have a narrative. its just cut like an inarritu movie. and the song is an excellent choice methinks.
why you say there is no humanity and imagination in it escapes me. but then i covered this with my all in meanings…..
this adidas spot is so not nike. nike and ‘just do it’ is very much individualistic, a la fuck it all, just do it. no wonder if you think about the time it came from. ‘all in’ is not just a twist on this. it is the opposite somehow. of course, it has the passion part. how could any sports brand live without it.
i think its great. and i could watch it all day, just as i wanted to do with the street where originality lives. it can have all my pencils. and the biros.
also, i think they make a good job of making the brand appeal to men and women. would like to see more women doing their thing.
anyway, no offence.
Man, that high jumper at the end is fit.
This is style over substance, but the style part of it is done well, so it doesn’t really matter a fuck to be honest. The punters it’s aimed at will lap this up.
Hey, it’s far superior to the New Balance “Excellence” crap. Have you seen the newest installment? A bunch of unrelated images and then a V.O. and image at the end of the new shoe sitting on a scale. The message? THE SHOE WEIGHS ALMOST NOTHING! Now that’s something a creative team should be able to sink their teeth into. But they totally screwed it up.
Team Steve!! Any fool could make this with a few stars and 50 million bucks..
anyway, adidas, nike, puma. who cares eh. the real estate guys have done it again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9LBQZ3nxCU
I guess Steve and all the anons just lost the last pitch for the account or something.
Maybe these people who love to see their insightful critique published should be asked to accompany it with an example of their own genius that is so-way-better.
The ad is everything Ben said in his intro.
I’m with Steve! Ben, give this man a regular column.
In all seriousness, there is not enough proper analysis of what an ad is trying to ‘do’ out there.
There are no suit blogs (okay, there’s 1 maybe) and most of the planning blogs just go on about how great the internet is. Which it is, of course. But I know that already.
Steve is telling me stuff I don’t know.
Steve – feel free to write posts. I’ll definitely put them up.
ITIABTWC is an open church (that isn’t actually a church).
Back to Speed. Fine, so it’s not as remarkable as it should be, as you want, it would be real nice if it could be, but in the meantime dump on an effort to move closer to the where Nike is – and I think it does that – and I don’t agree it apes Nike. Jesus, unless you’ve been hitting 1000 all your life – and I’m willing to bet you haven’t, give a little credit, goddamn at least someone is trying.
Are you? As Alan Parker said frequently,ain’t nobody ever raised a statue to a critic, and before you feel smug enough to point it out, I do know he was not the first to say that.
PS. I have no idea who did the ad or even what country it comes from.
PS. I just resent pompous, smug, motherfuckers.
They should have went with “Balls Deep”
Mood film.
The global conference will love it. Honestly don’t think the kidz will talk about it.
I liked the strap “All in” – although that is typically a betting term from poker but it does the job well.
I didn’t like the ad much though very samey in my eyes.
Yeah, bring on Steve. That’s a shit idea just executed well. Ben’s headline says it all — if the great editing is what you notice then something else has been forgotten along the way.
still. would you put it on your reel?
also, the line is very pervasive. vinnie has just used it on his blog.
i still LOVE it. its not a mood film, its a music video. and a great one at that.
what is an ad supposed to do? move product. but, this is the kick-off. and it is all about brand. introducing it. so, thats what it does. it will very much depend on what they do now and with it. also, its probably much more appropriate to say ads and all other communication stuff is in place to get brand x into the relevant set. thats my inimportant two cents. you should all be able to buy your fucking lunch by now.
Yeah I’d probably put it on my reel. My reel is full of shit though. I don’t see why you have to be nice about stuff just because you might not have done any better.
@gout-legs, thanks for the reference. but i use the phrase “all in” a lot. it’s a good phrase. hey it comes from poker. and poker is cool!
Pompous. Smug. Motherfuckers.
It’s all in the mix.
Messi playing in a fake footy match. Katy Perry. D-Beck. Guy with waterproof camera. Plays like a mood film to me. A shit one.
You used to be cool Adidas, wha’ happened?