Nike, Adidas and On Are Having Fun With It
Sportswear brands are getting extra creative, savage and light-hearted with their marketing, all at the same time.
Hi friends! Welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter that tells stories you can't find anywhere else about the intersection of sports, fashion, business, and culture. Powered by OffBall.
A lot is made of the so-called marketing battles among the world’s biggest sportswear and sneaker brands. In recent weeks, brands have been extra creative—and a little savage—with their ads, poking fun at their competitors (nothing new there) and even taking themselves a little less seriously. It’s added some spice to what’s been a packed month in the sporting calendar.
In today’s SportsVerse newsletter, I’m rounding up some of the best pieces of sportswear brand marketing I’ve seen in recent weeks and analysing why each one resonated.
But first, here are three things my friends at OffBall and I are reading in sports culture this week.
Read this great breakdown on the art and science of sports sponsorships by Toni Cowan-Brown.
Jordan Wise, the person who took a chance on me as a rookie writer years ago, has written his first piece on Substack that is well worth a read: “The Culture Wars in Football: Why Gen Z Fans Are Forcing Clubs to Rethink Everything”.
Omarr Belhaj has some interesting thoughts on “the generational divide in football (soccer) punditry.”
Adidas: “Crime Scene”
Tell me about it: In Adidas’ latest spot for Anthony Edwards’ AE 1 sneaker, two detectives approach a crime scene.
“Oh, another one. How’d it happen?” one detective asks his colleague.
“It’s your classic ‘you can’t guard me’, ‘I am him’ type posterization,” she responds, as they crouch to look over a chalk outline of a corpse.
“We think it was the traction. The herringbone outsole of the assailant’s shoes has him cutting through the defence like…” she trails off.
“…Like a hot knife through butter…”
“Until we find him, no one is safe… anyone can get it.”
“Believe that.”
Why’s it so good?
First off, Ice T stars as one of the detectives. It’s the latest instalment of a long line of legendary commercials stretching back to the launch of Anthony Edwards’ signature sneaker in December 2023, which have almost single-handedly put Adidas hoops back on the map (along with the shoe’s unique design and wearability off-court).
Fans were quick to note how Adidas dropped the advert right after Ant dunked on OKC’s Chet Holmgren last week. The chalk sketch corpse outline the detectives are crouched over is marked by a number 7 cone, which just so happens to be Holmgren’s jersey number. (The video also begins with an audio recording of Edwards saying: “You just got dunked the f*** on.” For Adidas, it was probably made even sweeter because Holmgren is a Nike athlete.
Each numbered cone around the crime scene corresponds to a jersey number of an NBA player who has fallen victim to Edwards’ famous poster dunks over the years, including Holmgren (7), Jaren Jackson Jr (13), John Collins (20) and Gabe Vincent (2). The best commercials are full of hints and hidden meanings for fans to decipher.
Bonus points: The ad subtly puts people onto the technology built into the AE 1 shoe, in a lighthearted way. As well as the traction and herringbone outsole references, the detective also says: “And with the Light Boost, he [Ant] had to be like 30 feet in the air. Sucka never had a chance.”
On: “Looks like an O and an N, right?”
Tell me about it: From On, we’ve learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to their marketing, even when the unexpected includes a surprise partnership with Elmo from Sesame Street. The first look we got of this link-up was in On’s Super Bowl ad, where Elmo asks Roger Federer why the brand is called “QC”, bringing up one of the more common misconceptions on how to pronounce the brand’s name, given the look of its logo.
Then, On launched “Soft Wins”, a campaign designed to help runners be more chill and maybe take themselves less seriously. Lord knows some of them could do with that.
What’s good about it?
Sportswear brands are often guilty of taking themselves seriously. Poking gentle fun at the fact that almost anyone who comes across the brand’s logo initially thinks it says “QC” is a smart way to remind people how to actually say their name, via the smoothest of all messengers: Roger Federer. It’s also a smart tactic for how to deepen people’s association with the brand without directly pushing any specific product.
The Soft Wins campaign was also a nice reminder of On’s ethos. Each brand has a different approach when it comes to communicating their appeal. For example, Nike’s marketing is about winning and winning only, striving for athletic greatness. It has led to some of the greatest and most goosebump-inducing commercials over the years. On has typically struck a more endearing tone, and this campaign allowed it to stress its friendlier nature that has been so foundational to its disruptive successes in the sportswear industry over the last decade.
“As a performance-driven brand, we wanted to challenge the idea that success in running is defined by intensity alone,” said Alex Griffin, On’s chief marketing officer. “With Elmo at the heart of Soft Wins, we’re encouraging runners to embrace self-compassion, community, and personal growth.”
Nike: “No money like Easy Money”
Tell me about it: This was Nike’s tribute to Kevin Durant, a.k.a. Mr. Easy Money himself, passing 30,000 career points in the NBA.
Why do we like it?
The 15-second clip is short, fun and effective, showing a Nike-branded banknote counter dishing out three hundred “100-point notes” with KD’s face on them, to the tune of The O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” track.
Nike is slowly getting back to its best when it comes to its marketing. Check out my deep-dive on “So Win, the brand’s Wieden+Kennedy-produced Super Bowl spot, and why I think it marks the early stages of the brand’s cultural comeback.
Bonus points: The best marketing moments from brands like Nike or Adidas come hot on the heels of iconic sporting moments when the stars align to allow a brand to release content that celebrates an athlete’s greatness. And as we saw with Adidas’ AE 1 commercial above, it’s even better if that same ad can help you get one over your opponents.
This is exactly what Nike did after releasing a quick turnaround ad to celebrate the Eagles’ runaway victory at the Super Bowl. The tongue-in-cheek spot, “It’s Good to Be Green”, was narrated by a Kermit-sounding voice, leaving it up to fans to go wild in the comments trying to decipher if it was a cheeky dig at the Chief’s Patrick Mahomes, who just so happens to be an Adidas athlete.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Until next time!
DYM
Thanks for the shoutout 🤩 Another banger of a piece and it's so nice to see these brands having fun.
Appreciate the shoutout!🤝🏽