Modern Marketing Awards Case Studies Social Media

How Adidas used Twitter to hype-up football boots

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By Awards Analyst | writer

December 7, 2022 | 4 min read

Twitter Next won in the Best Use of Twitter and Most Innovative Use of Social categories at The Drum’s Social Media Awards in 2022 for its work with Adidas. Here we find out what went into the project.

adidas

Twitter Next won in the Best Use of Twitter and Most Innovative Use of Social / adidas

The sports giant wanted to drive hype around its new X Speedflow football boots by positioning them as the fastest footballing footwear on the planet.

The brief

The team needed to get football fans to understand the product and create a connection with them. The idea was to seek out and reward those who could prove themselves, on Twitter, to be fast enough to grace the pitch in the world's fastest football boots.

The idea

For the project, the world’s first #FastestFollower Twitter account was built, which could only be followed by one person each day. The @XSpeedflow account was locked preventing anyone from following and then a campaign was launched to drive awareness of it using a Twitter-promoted livestream that signaled to players across Europe when the account was about to open. Once the live stream announced it was open, the race was on to be the fastest to follow and gain VIP access to the content inside. Only one person per day could follow the account before it was automatically locked again with #FastestFollower instantly celebrated in the promoted live stream. Other players who tried to follow the account automatically received a tweet telling them they were too slow and to try again the following day.

If the bragging rights were not enough, each fastest follower was surprised with a personalized message from a top football player, including Gigi Windaldum, Achraf Hakimi and Joao Felix.

The results

Nine million players following the live stream across UK, France and Spain, eagerly awaited their chance to pounce on the follow button. An @XSpeedflow follow request came in, on average, every sixty seconds. Six fastest followers were crowned across six days, including Arsenal and England legend Ian Wright (who clearly hasn’t lost a yard of pace since his retirement).

This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Social Media 2022. You can see all the winners here. The Drum Awards for Marketing are currently open for entry. Find out how you can enter now.

Modern Marketing Awards Case Studies Social Media

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