Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation ?

adidas Alphabounce activated its first ever Retail solution with Entertainment proposition, named as “Retailtainment experience”. An experiential bootcamp in offline store where the complete product offering was demonstrated. adidas Alphabounce was offering a line of sleek, futuristic performance shoes inspired by athletes who use running to gain an edge in their game. No matter you run or what sport you play, the advanced technology of Alphabounce shoes helped athletes break past potential to experience limitless performance. We needed to do much more than delivering an inspiring communication. We focused to adopt an immersive route to its key point of purchase.

Background

AlphaBounce had always been misattributed as basketball footwear, thus limited the market we target. To overcome this, adidas felt the need to embed the core attribute of ‘running’ into AlphaBounce’s identity, thereby accelerating product trials and driving conversion in offline retail stores. At the outset, when we realized to heighten the aspect that Alphabounce is meant for running. We identified that “running” could be introduced in anyone’s lives to start as a foundation to any fitness regime. Popular sports like swimming, table tennis, football, basketball, dancing and badminton often gets into running. The harder one’s train, the better they perform at their game and experience improvement in their speed to act, agility to adapt and reflex to respond. Becoming an athlete is all about “mindset” change. Fit body and stamina require mental steadiness, self-restrain, will power, fighting attitude and staying focused. AlphaBounce wanted to reassert this message through immersive experience.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Majority of sales contribution comes from offline. At the Store level, we created the first ever Retail-tainment experience for the fitness and sports enthusiasts who come, immerse, experience and take the shoes home. adidas retail outlets were converted into adidas ‘Alpha Boot camp’, offering the real-life athlete’s experience to the larger audience like footwork, circuit challenge and various other sports with the shoes on. A retail store is turned into gym-cum-running track. This offline activity was triggered through various exposure stimulus generated by co-created content, focusing around the theme “Unrestrained for my game”. Curated contents featuring national swimmer, national runner in AlphaBounce product video and social videos were on air. Three motivating videos produced by football, basketball and street dance, showcasing athelete mindset and product relevance. These continued to flood through multi channels drove retail footfall. Word of mouth generated through sports and lifestyle content Key Opinion Leaders.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The intent was to drive high retail traffic and retargeted to the larger audience who led an active sporting lifestyle. Apart from footfall, adidas wanted the consumer that walk into the retail store should come out feeling re-charged with an ‘athlete’ instinct. adidas retail store became the self-sustained media channel, the ‘focal point’ of all interactions, conversations and share-worthy experiences and user generated contents. There were 5 key steps to amplify the Reatiltainment to a larger scale. 1. We leveraged social and a PR event to introduce the product 2. We created AlphaCamp online experience on Joyrun ( fitness app ), extended onto retail store in Beijing 3. We utilized Dianping ( high online to offline lifestyle utility app) and drove adiClub recruitment and traffic to store 4. We organized training classes highlighting key product attributes 5. We invited media and male health e-magazines to experience the boot camp

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

To amplify adidas Retailtainment experience to consumer and powered by various app partnerships, we not only drove consumer to adidas retail store but received their profile and activity information through various stages. This way we collected accurate profiles and data at every micro stage. Core implementation revolved: • Targeting with Real time geographic data (regular gym visitors, sports complex, and basketball/football stadiums) • Targeting through customized profiles from Historicaldata (Visited gym, sport complex, basketball/football stadiums, 3km of adidas stores in past 90 days). We created a year-long CRMmechanism where adidas recruited new adiCLUB members. • Traffic to adiCLUB also routed via Dianping. One could earn points by the amount spent in the store. Higher points came with greater benefits: a special access to exclusive launch and activities(Alpha Boot camp) • For cities without the Alpha Bootcamp, users couldcollect a RMB100 coupon off next RMB500 spend in store via Joyrun app

List the results (30% of vote)

adidas Retailtainment experience generated miraculous results. • adidas AlphaBounce successfully recruited over 5000 adiCLUB members • It drove conversion rate of new member coupons at 10.5% which was 5 times higher than any adidas hero campaigns. • If we look into the sales conversion, a whopping 250,000 pairs of AlphaBounce were sold within 90 days period which is 15% higher than the highest offtake range in adidas sales history. • Across all social media, the adidas AlphaBootcamp created massive conversation and contributed to increasing trends in healthy lifestyle to reach out to broader audience who made a New Year resolution to look better and fitter. • The digital exposure reached out to over 50 million eyeballs and 2.3% CTR which is 30% higher than usual performance campaigns of adidas.