Adidas vs. Nike: Battle of the Soccer Ads

Their vivid commercials may be remembered longer than the best plays of the Euro 2008. But will they sell more merchandise?

by Jack Ewing

Euro 2008, the European football championship, produced some sublime moments of play even before the teams reached the quarterfinals. Think of Michael Ballack's arching free kick into the corner of the Austrian goal to give Germany the game, or Turkey's comeback from a two-goal deficit in the final 16 minutes to beat the Czech Republic.

But when it's all over and the fans have scrubbed the last traces of national-color face paint from their cheeks, what will they really remember? The commercials, of course. Like every international soccer event, Euro 2008 is also a fierce marketing duel between the two giants of soccer apparel, Adidas and Nike.

Bavaria-based Adidas (ADSG.DE) and Portland (Ore.)-based Nike (NKE) have taken radically different approaches to their advertising. Both companies tap the celebrity appeal of soccer gods like David Beckham or Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo. Nike's spot, though, has video-game-like intensity, while Adidas' campaign is deliberately slow-paced and almost old-fashioned.

Beyond Advertising

Nike hired film director and Madonna spouse Guy Ritchie to shoot its spot, which compresses a pro soccer career into two breathless minutes seen from the point of view of a player. (Check it out here.)

The Adidas campaign, which includes nearly an hour of film broken into 12 episodes, focuses on local teams of kids in backwaters of Europe such as the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall. (Check it out here.) Famous players arrive unexpectedly to kick around balls and offer coaching tips. The campaign by agency 180 Amsterdam is less a commercial than a documentary. Adidas clothes and soccer boots play a discreet role.

Although there's no overt sales pitch, the theme feeds into Adidas' "Impossible is Nothing" slogan. "The idea we were trying to get across is that just because you come from a less well-known part of Europe doesn't mean you can't be successful," says 180 Executive Creative Director Richard Bullock. "That distance from here to there is accessible."

While Adidas brings the soccer gods to earth, the Nike spot lets viewers hang out at Mt. Olympus. The commercial, by Ritchie and Los Angeles/Amsterdam-based ad agency 72andSunny, is shot through a player's eyes, giving viewers the illusion that they are experiencing the life of a footballer, from the day a famous coach discovers him in the boondocks to his debut on the national team.

Becoming a Soccer God

The spot opens in the regional leagues, as we arch a free kick over the heads of some defenders and into goal. As our view swivels to the sidelines, we see Arsène Wenger, coach of Britain's Arsenal soccer club, watching from the sidelines. Our eyes meet.

Next we are collecting our Arsenal uniform, and then Wenger is subbing us into the game—where an opponent powers by us to score. But then a teammate boots a hard pass across the field. We slam the ball into the goal. We're on our way to stardom.

The scenes that follow are frenetic yet coherent. We step out of a limo with our supermodel girlfriend into a crowd of screaming fans. We see the girlfriend's cold stare as we autograph a female fan's cleavage. We train so hard we vomit on our soccer boots—making Nike probably the first company in Madison Ave. history to sell its products by barfing on them. In a game against Barcelona we watch helplessly as Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho dribbles past.