CorpComms Magazine

If you tuned into any football match during the World Cup, the chances are that the striking three-bar logo of Adidas, the world's second-largest sporting goods company, was prominently displayed on the screen.

It's hardly surprising. The German-owned company reportedly invested about one quarter of its €1 bn annual marketing budget on sponsorship, advertising and other projects related to the event. Indeed, 110 Adidas staff apparently spent the last two years doing nothing but preparing for the World Cup.

Consequently, no stone was left unturned. Mindful of arch-rival Nike's guerrilla advertising techniques at the 1996 Atlantic Olympics, when Nike bought up billboards around the event sites, Adidas locked up most of the outdoor signs in cities where matches are being played.

Adidas also paid for the rights to shut Nike out of TV advertising in America for all 64 games of the tournament, and six teams, including Germany, Argentina, Spain and France, wore an Adidas strip.

Having a ball

Adidas' Teamgeist football, which, with 14 panels instead of the conventional 26-panel hexagonal pattern, is aerodynamically more similar to a baseball, was used throughout the World Cup. The company supplied 15 balls, personalised with the name of the stadium, teams, match date and kick-off time, for each game. A special gold version was even produced for the final.

'This is the biggest campaign we have ever done,' explains Adidas chief executive Herbert Hainer. 'Our strategy is to dominate the World Cup.'

For Adidas, the World Cup means business. The sporting goods group expects to sell 1.5 mn jerseys, 1 mn pairs of Predator boots (worn by England midfielder Steven Gerrard and captain David Beckham) and 15 mn Teamgeist official World Cup footballs. Indeed, if Adidas achieves its ambitions, sales from the Teamgeist ball alone will raise £1.05 bn - repaying the sponsorship investment more than five-fold.

And, in a cheeky move, Adidas has launched the world's most expensive football footwear to coincide with the tournament. Tunit, the first 'fully customisable' boot, costs £270 a pair and is being worn by more than 100 players in the World Cup, including England left-back Ashley Cole.

Journalists were sent a Tunit-branded video iPod on which players' reactions to the boot were shown, and immediately dubbed the footwear the 'iPod of football'.

Just the ticket

But while expensive, high-profile sponsorship campaigns can raise brand awareness, they can also alienate staff. It can be hard for a shop assistant to feel excited about his bosses spending millions on the World Cup when the closest he or she gets to the action is watching it on TV.

Adidas was determined that such disenchantment would not ripple through its 16,000 employees. From its 'official sponsor' allotment of World Cup tickets, the company sold 5,000 at cost to staff, thereby quashing the old complaint that only executives benefit from sponsorship. It also launched its own five-a-side football league, known as the Adidas Employee World Cup, and invited staff from around the world to enter.

Tony Cooke, director of human resources at Adidas UK, explains: 'There were really four reasons behind this. We're a sports company. Our staff are crazy about sport. Our headquarters are in Germany. And it was a fun thing to do.'

There were just two rules: each team had to include one female employee - the winning side actually signed up a member of Manchester United's female squad - and someone from a different department, to ensure 'a degree of integration', explains Cooke.

Twelve teams, with ten players in each squad, entered the UK tournament, meaning that one in six of Adidas UK's 780 employees were actively involved. 'We realised that not everybody likes football, so there were lots of social events tied around the tournament,' explains Cooke, 'but everybody got involved. You could really feel the boost to morale. People were even running books on the teams. And the players took it really seriously; they would finish work and then do a couple of hours' training in the evening.'

Media magic

Manchester-based video and multimedia specialist Mediafour was hired to work on the UK tournament. 'We started off with a teaser campaign to build anticipation of the event,' explains marketing director Vicky Fagan. 'We had posters, football top trumps cards and TV-style video programmes e-mailed out to all staff in their lunchtimes.'

Four weeks before the championships in March, Mediafour conducted interviews with all the team captains - including, three weeks before, a female-centred session on 'From Barbie Pink to Girl Power!' And, with a fortnight to go, professional footballers offered words of advice.

'Our German head office said, You've got to do this, but how you do it is up to you. It was a basic skeleton and we had to put the meat and bones on it,' says Cooke. 'Every country gave their local tournament personality. As we were approaching the UK finals, I would write up little match reports and get the receptionist to read them out like a newsreader. There were updates after every game.'

'It was such a fun thing. We were telling our guys, Imagine. You could get to play against Brazil.'

One employee even learned about office etiquette. 'A guy who worked in one of our stores turned up to play wearing Nike shoes,' adds a horrified Cooke. 'We made sure he'll never do that again!'

He pauses: 'It was a faux pas, but it all added to the fun. Anyway, I think he was new.'

(It was just as well that he didn't wear Puma shoes - the two companies, set up by estranged brothers, are particularly bitter rivals. Adidas staff in the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, where both companies are headquartered, claim they would lose their job if they ever turned up to work in Puma trainers.)

Match fit

The twelve teams were playing for the right to represent the UK at Adidas' European Cup tournament in the Netherlands in May. 'All the European countries presented a team for the tournament,' says Cooke. Similar battles were played out on other continents to find a 'rest of the world' champion.

The winning UK side received 'a plaque and a rather nice trophy, and an all-expenses-paid trip to Holland to compete in the European championships,' explains Cooke. All UK staff also received an interactive DVD, including player profiles, spectator vox pops, the cup presentation ceremony, Adidas Wold Cup adverts and footage from both on and off the pitch in a fast-moving consumer-style TV programme. 'These really captured the enthusiasm,' says Cooke.

The eventual winner from Europe - France - played in the finals, which took place in Germany and were timed to coincide with the World Cup. The winning team received tickets to the real championship, allowing them to check out the professional competition!

'The World Cup is a big deal for Adidas, and we had an obligation to do this,' explains Cooke. 'It was not just because we thought people wanted it, but because we know our staff love sport. As soon as we mentioned it was happening, people signed up.'

Unfortunately, in a result that has proven somewhat prophetic, Adidas UK was knocked out on penalties - not against Portugal, but old rivals Germany.

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