Adidas Sprints Into Mobile Marketing

Mobile is integral to every integrated campaign, according to Chris Murphy, director of digital marketing for Adidas.

Wireless Week is reporting that Murphy is finding huge success with mobile - citing Adidas's “Brotherhood” campaign that ran at the start of the National Basketball Association season last fall. The focus of that campaign was TV and print. But the ads encouraged consumers to interact with the brand via text messaging.

According to the pub, each SMS was answered with a response in the form of a voice message from Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett talking about the importance of team play in basketball. For the next five weeks, participants received similar messages from different NBA players. The messages didn’t push Adidas products specifically but did send users to the Adidas Website to download ringtones with the players’ voices.

According to Murphy, the effort drove dramatic increases in purchase intention among participants - but no specifics are cited.

A fine move - mobile should by now be a response mechanism within most integrated campaigns. And I agree with Murphy that mobile doesn't play well as a standalone ad venue.

And let's not forget that Adidas has worked with Samsung to steal a page from Nike + iPod to develop a Samsung mobile phone that works with Adidas shoes and apparel to plan, track and motivate users as they train. We're talking mobile phone + heart rate monitor + stride sensor + MP3 player + the electronic voice of "personal coach."

And it's certainly not alone. This week, Puma will launch a mobile marketing campaign around its "Together Everywhere" program, which will alert participants when their favored team scores with a customized, downloadable version of the their theme song or chant.

But I think in Adidas' category, Reebok is better utilizing the mobile medium with its "Run Easy" initiative, in which outdoor promotions invited users to send a text message to join the "Run Easy" movement, or information on where they to run, what music they listen to, and what they talk about while running.

Information was then posted on the GoRunEasy website, effectively creating a global community of runners.

In the U.S., runners also received a link to a mobile website asking them to enter their location, which was then sent to the website and plotted in a mashup with Google Maps.

The effort, from Carat, Isobar and Neighborhood America resulted in nearly 50,000 total unique responses, with thousands joining in the campaign's first week. New York, with its heavy foot traffic, saw the highest participation rates.

A nice, targeted, brand-appropriate campaign, and a model for other brands - like competitor Adidas - hoping to provide a way for consumers to connect in a fully-branded experience through the power of mobile. Read more here.

Ariel Tredway