Back in March, 72andSunny won AOR status on Adidas’ Sport division, a position that had been held by 180LA for several years. (Johannes Leonardo is still the go-to shop for the Originals division and all things Pharrell.)
The agency’s first work for its newest client debuted today, and the point behind the campaign is that soccer fans should be individuals rather than simply “following” Lionel Messi along with 79 million other people on Facebook.
The narrator is an anonymous aspiring star who encourages others like himself to draw inspiration from one-time idols and “create something new.” One could argue that athletes aren’t creating anything, and anyone who works in advertising can appreciate the risks of directly stealing someone else’s moves rather than simply imitating their style.
The client calls the campaign a “complete shift in how Adidas communicates as a company,” and it’s in keeping with recent ads by Johannes Leonardo in which Pharrell talked about the importance of originality right after he received a $7 million legal smackdown for ripping off Marvin Gaye.
Future ads will follow the same “follow your own path” theme, which debuted in February with 180LA’s “Take It.”