Adidas promotes Predator boots with rent-a-ringer WhatsApp stunt /

Lighting up Dark Social / Facebook announced on 12 February that WhatsApp has now passed two billion users globally, up from 1.5 billion just two years ago. Despite the presence of advertising on Facebook’s other two flagship platforms, Facebook and Instagram, WhatsApp is still (for now) free of advertising.

Despite this barrier to entry, Adidas has stayed committed to activating within the platform, seeing it as a huge part of its local targeting strategy. Back in 2017, Adidas told Contagious that 70% of online referrals for the brand were happening in dark social apps such as WhatsApp (Contagious members can read the brand spotlight here). Dark social refers to the social media platforms where brands can’t track the source of users and social spaces where they’re unable to advertise. However, Adidas is still encouraging fans to join groups on these platforms, called Tango Squads, where those connected receive information about Adidas products before anyone else.

This has enabled Adidas to build an intimate relationship with consumers across the globe, and the Rent-a-Pred campaign is another strong example of this strategy. Given its global reach, WhatsApp is likely to be one of the platforms that football teams use to coordinate and plan match fixtures, where messages will be exchanged about injuries, clashes or hangovers which result in someone dropping out last minute, and where friends will be called on to stand in for an absent teammate. With its WhatsApp-based activation, Adidas is both aligning with existing behaviour and solving a common pain point with a seamless transition.

Last year Contagious covered another campaign that got creative with dark social and WhatsApp. The Heroes of the Night campaign, by beer brand Beck’s, turned private group conversations on WhatsApp into bespoke comic strips. Each strip chronicled groups of friends’ nights out, using over 300 illustrated frames and 10 unique characters – resulting in 12 billion individual combinations.

Fake it until you make it / This campaign unlocks a particularly rich insight from the world of competitive activities. From video gaming to sports, calling out ‘unfairness’ is a fairly common response to anything that takes place that isn’t in your team’s favour, especially when your team is losing. Adidas have played into this concept with comedic effect, but it also provides an effective branding exercise. Through the association with the boots being ‘unfair’, it emphasises the quality of the product and the desirability of the boots.

Show don’t tell / The Rent-a-Pred activation doubles up as a clever product demonstration for potential customers. Rather than seeing the boots, stationary, in a sports good store, footballers get to witness the boots’ potential in a live environment. It may be biased and slightly ‘unfair’ to have the product demo performed by players with a higher-than-average footballing ability, but if anything, this helps play into the overall message of the Predator 20 campaign: it’s not fair, but that’s the point.