Adidas vs. Nike: Battle of the Soccer Ads

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The spot ends where it began, as we set up to take a free kick in front of the goal—only this time we're wearing Holland's national colors in front of thousands of fans. Fade to the Nike tag line, "Take it to the Next Level."

Adidas' campaign has a completely different feel, but it too mines the desire of every young footballer to share a pitch with the idols of the sport. Adidas and 180 made three short films, on the Isles of Scilly and in the tiny European principalities of Andorra and San Marino.

The Pros Drop In

The films begin by introducing a team of young, real-life local players, who weren't told what would happen. On the Isles of Scilly, the kids are mute with awe when Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard shows up at practice. He's only the first pro to pay a surprise visit. Liverpool striker Andriy Voronin drops from the sky in a small plane. Germany team captain Michael Ballack appears from behind a hedge.

By the time Beckham climbs out of a local resident's pickup truck, the kids bust out laughing—the whole thing is just too amazing. Beckham shows the young players how to use a certain spot on the inside of the foot to shoot one of his lethal free kicks. Gerrard later sleeps on the couch at one kid's home, asking: "Are you sure your parents are okay with me stayin' over?"

"My friends stay over all the time," the boy replies.

The mini-documentaries are a gamble for Adidas in a world where most marketers assume young viewers don't have an attention span of more than a few minutes. In fact, vignettes from the films will be spliced down to TV spots as short as 15 seconds. (A film for the U.S. market focuses on Beckham because of his high name recognition (BusinessWeek.com, 7/13/07) there.) But Adidas is betting that football-obsessed youngsters can't get enough of their favorite stars, especially when the stars offer practical advice.

Both the Adidas and Nike campaigns are immensely entertaining, but are they selling merchandise? It's too early to tell. Adidas says its share of the European football market edged up to 40% in 2007, vs. 38% in 2006, and that Euro 2008 is shaping up to be even more lucrative than the last European championship four years ago.

Online Attention

But those numbers reflect sales before the campaign launched on June 16. In any event, advertising is just one part of a much larger marketing campaign, including giant likenesses of Adidas-sponsored athletes at locations such as the Zurich train station. However, in one indication that the Dream Big campaign is working, Adidas says the time people spend on its Web site has doubled since the short films went online. That's good for sales because the site directs people to more detailed product information.

Nike—which claims to be the global leader in soccer apparel—says the Next Level spot has been viewed 9 million times on the company's soccer Web site as well as on YouTube (GOOG) and other outlets. (Shorter versions are also running on European TV.)

One lesson of both campaigns is that Internet video has made advertising a pull rather than a push business. To draw viewers, marketers have to show them a good time and go easy on the sales pitch. "We pay a lot of attention to how the products line up, but the sell is very loose," says 180 creative director Bullock. "We're making pure entertainment."

Ewing is BusinessWeek's European regional editor .