Tip-Off: Adidas 'Brotherhood' Campaign Launches (Duncan Related)

[duncan228]

I put it here because of Duncan's part in the campaign.

I like the sound of what they're trying to do.
I hope the ads are as great as the idea.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=69733

Tip-Off: Adidas 'Brotherhood' Campaign Launches
by Karl Greenberg

PORTLAND, ORE.-BASED ADIDAS IS LAUNCHING a campaign timed with the kickoff of NBA season this week, and supporting Adidas' Team Signature footwear and apparel, which arrive in retail on Friday. The effort is called "Basketball is a Brotherhood", and features NBA All Stars Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady.

The integrated push features the players during candid moments, working as a team, teaching kids how to behave as a team, and talking about the subject interview-style. But the rich-media focus is online, with 11 video episodes housed at adidasbasketball.com. The campaign, via 180 LA, drives consumers to the site with TV, mobile, print and retail components. At the Web site, consumers can do things like text in to "join the Brotherhood."
The videos were shot at a basketball camp for 12 young players who knew that the camp was run by Adidas--but not that the camp counselors were Garnett, Duncan, Arenas, Howard, Billups and T- Mac. The films are intended to reveal how disparate players become a team through crucible of practice, camaraderie and discipline. The Brotherhood campaign continues the Adidas tactic of showing its products in settings that put pros next to regular Joes.

On April 11, 2006, the Adidas Group and the NBA signed an 11-year global merchandising partnership that will make the Adidas brand the official uniform and apparel provider for the NBA, the Women's National Basketball Association and the NBA Development League (D-League) beginning with the 2006-07 NBA season.

Also last year, Adidas introduced its Signature line with ads featuring the six All Star players who are in the current effort. Last year's campaign--"Believe in 5IVE," which ran for six months--also had a "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" message. TV spots had the players lambaste those who think a team is defined by its stars. It also drove consumers to the Web site, but for a sweepstakes. As is the case this year, each of the six players has a signature shoe.

The media rollout covers the U.S., Asian and European markets. The company says it is rolling out the "Team Signature" brand with a tri-partite launch: First is Team Signature Lightspeed, touted as the lightest Adidas basketball shoe ever; in November, the company will launch Team Signature Lightswitch, featuring a new cushion system; next February, Adidas will launch Team Signature Pro. Each shoe comes in different player editions--e.g., "Team Signature Lightspeed T-MAC."

[1Parker1]

Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady.

That's actually a pretty sweet starting 5 with howard off the bench :)

[urunobili]

i saw some videos (can;t remember if it was you who gave me the link) in Arena's nba.com blog that shows the made of the clinic and Timmy was having awesome fun with every one... also a nasty play by one of the Joes where he stood up with CHauncey trying to tease Garnett about it... making hard fouls all safe fun :)

[duncan228]

i saw some videos (can;t remember if it was you who gave me the link) in Arena's nba.com blog that shows the made of the clinic and Timmy was having awesome fun with every one... also a nasty play by one of the Joes where he stood up with CHauncey trying to tease Garnett about it... making hard fouls all safe fun :)

It was me.
The thread:

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78890

The link to the video:

http://www.gilbertology.net/2007/10/05/gilbert-plays-a-pickup-game-with-high-school-students/

[Summers]

Y'all should check 'em out... lots of fun Duncan videos. Thanks for the head's up!

[duncan228]

This is the link Summers is referring to:

http://www.adidas.com/sports/basketball/content/vertical/country/us/default.asp#

Go through it all, it's great. Click on Duncan's shoe to get his 2 minute plus segment.

[Summers]

Plus there's a pretty funny "interview" between Duncan and Gilbert Arenas. (Gil: I got 3million votes for the cover. Tim: I got 3. Gil: I voted for you. Tim: So did I. And my wife voted for me.) :lol

[duncan228]

Some more cool stuff coming out.
Be sure to check out the link, some of the videos are there.
And I can't say it enough...go to adidas and check out the campaign. There's really some great stuff on it.
This may be one of my favorite campaigns yet from adidas or any of the big names marketing with the NBA.

http://creativity-online.com/?action=news:article&newsId=121464&sectionName=behind_the_work

Brotherhood is Bond
180 L.A. helps Adidas bring out its biggest hoop stars to teach the meaning of teamwork.

By: Kiran Aditham

Some might say it's only a game, but for both fans and players of the NBA, it's life. For its latest campaign, Adidas and 180 L.A. go beyond the hoop dreams, big contracts and super-stardom to show that, above all, basketball is a team sport. With the NBA regular season kicking off next week, the "Basketball is a Brotherhood" campaign, promoting Adidas' new Team Signature lines, takes the brand's biggest stars—namely Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Tracy McGrady and Dwight Howard—and has them teach some budding stars the true meaning of basketball.

"If you've been following the game as long as I have and if you're as old as I am, you've seen a lot of stuff in the game of basketball," says 180 L.A. executive creative director William Gelner. "One of the things that any journalist, fan, player or coach in the NBA all the way down to junior high will tell you—and it's a universal truth—is that you don't win championships if you don't play as a team. It's so true that it's maybe become cliché."

For Gelner, the teamwork facet of basketball is often underrated in the age of sports marketing. "It's one of those things that has been either overlooked or just not talked about, maybe because it's just not that sexy on the surface or maybe because in the last 20 years of sports marketing, it's been all about the individual," he claims. "It's all about the 360-degree, tomahawk-dunking phenom that's 9 years-old. So, for whatever reason, that's happened, and the whole notion of a team and the importance of it have missed a generation."

He continues, "It's too bad because when you really think about it, the best teams were and are now all about that. If you look at the [San Antonio] Spurs, they're all about it and look what they're doing—they're a dynasty. The reason they're a dynasty is because how they play. Tim Duncan, who's one of Adidas' main guys, is a poster boy for it. He's pretty selfless in the way he plays but boy, do they tear teams apart."

With Duncan and the rest of the stars on board, 180 L.A. snagged music video director Paul Hunter to document a week-long training camp for a handful of potential greats from the next generation. "The first thing we did, since we felt like the notion has skipped a generation, we said let's go to that group: young guys who are really into hoops," Gelner explains. "So we created an event where we found the top ten or twelve young players out there... like 12-year-old kids. Many of them are on [Amateur Athletic Union] teams and they were guys who had skills. Most of them could dunk with two elbows above the rim, so these are kids that are really phenoms in the making. But they're of this generation that not all of them truly understand this concept. So what we did is we threw a basketball camp in the summer here in L.A. and invited these guys. All they knew was that they were being selected to be at a basketball camp this summer run by Adidas, knowing they were coming because of their skills."

[B]But what the group didn't know is that top Adidas-branded superstars were going to be the facilitators, instructors and mentors. "They get here, they get to show off their strengths and show that they could actually dunk with two elbows above the rim," says Gelner. "It was crazy, some of the kids are sporting size 18s. So that's all they knew. They were coming here for that and they were of that 'shoot first, pass second' mentality. But what they didn't know was over the coming week, they were going to actually learn what basketball really was about and they were going to learn it from Adidas's top players—T. Mac, K.G., Chauncey Billups, Dwight Howard and Gilbert [Arenas]."

The somewhat boot-camp was captured on film by Hunter and translated into a series of webisodes that can be viewed on the Adidas basketball site. "Every different episode and every different day of the event with a different player, they would learn something new," Gelner says. "Not in a preachy sort of way, but we try to do it much more down-to-earth and side-by-side."

The webisodes feature NBA stars conveying the values of teamwork while deflating egos in the process. "We had K.G. in the bunks with them hanging out in their dorms; we had T-Mac issuing uniforms," Gelner recalls. "It was all just unscripted and we had the cameras there to capture their reactions. Basically, we just let the players tell them their stories like 'Hey look, K.G., just tell these kids what it's about, what's up with you and what's your idea of brotherhood and teamwork and how did it affect you and get you to where you're at.' We just let them go and you can see they're all very real and genuine moments like Chauncey talking to them after running the stairs and doing drills. He was just laying it down and giving them real talk, and we were seeing how they'd react to that. Like Tim Duncan (below), everyone has their own stories that talk about the notion of teamwork that helped them get to where they're at today to achieve what no on thought they could achieve."

Along with the print, single TV spot and interactive elements, 180 L.A. pressed the mobile aspect of the campaign, using text messages as a way for Adidas stars to interact with their audience. "It's a digitally-led campaign," Gelner says. "Mobile is a crucial part to it as well as interactive. Essentially, we only did one traditional television commercial, and that serves primarily to engage the audience with the idea of brotherhood, intrigue them and keep them wanting more. At the end of the spot, we tell them to text K.G. or Chauncey or whoever, depending on where the spot runs on what game with what player. At the end of the spot, say you text K.G., he calls you back and he'll give you a message and tell you what basketball's all about and how you achieve your impossible. You'll get all these calls from these different athletes and then they'll ask you to check out more at adidasbasketball.com. So when you go there, that's when you get all the different webisodes and all the other content that we have there as well as information about the actual show, which is Team Signature."

The brand also executed a takeover of the upcoming issue of SLAM magazine, complete with a Kevin Garnett cover and prominent ad placement. "On the cover, you see K.G. for the first time in his Celtics uniform," says Gelner. "[From the cover], you can actually text him. On the lower right-hand corner, it says text K.G. and when you do, you get a message."

180 L.A. is also planning on tying in brick-and-mortar outfits to seed the event."You're going to actually go to the store and when you see these boxes of 'Team Signature' shoes, they're going to have those quotes by the individual players for the individual shoes so it carries all the way into retail," says Gelner. "At certain retailers, there are going to be interactive screens where you can interact and see all the content and different webisodes there as well."

[duncan228]

More is coming out on this campaign every day.

For those of you who haven't been to the adidas site and poked around yet, you're missing something really cool. I encourage you to go.

There's a bunch of videos, there's photos and wallpapers and music to download.
There are things with all 6 players,(Duncan, Arenas, Billups, Garnett, McGrady, Howard), and things individually as well.

For Duncan fans, be sure to check out the "Tim and Gil" set of clips, as Summers said it's great stuff. (Along with a bunch of other Duncan stuff.)

The adidas link to launch the campaign:

http://www.adidas.com/sports/basketball/content/vertical/country/us/default.asp#

Here's another article about the campaign.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071026/aqf023.html?.v=33

adidas Basketball Continues to Inspire and Build on Team With 'Basketball Is a Brotherhood'

PORTLAND, Ore., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- After last season's successful launch of the global basketball movement, "Believe in 5IVE" and the idea of believing in "We" and not "Me," adidas, side-by-side with NBA All-Stars Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady announced today the continuing evolution of this philosophy with "Basketball is a Brotherhood."

"Basketball is a Brotherhood" is the celebration of a group of players brought together to form a single, unstoppable unit. The sole objective is to win through honoring the core values of the game: we lead by example; we trust each other; we make the extra pass, we fight for our fellow brother every night; we don't check box scores. And the only name on the jersey we care about is the one across the front. In the "Brotherhood," dynasties don't happen alone. In the "Brotherhood," it's "We not Me." The "Brotherhood" only happens when forces combine and egos die. Laugh and cry together. Win and lose together. Fight together. Always together! Only through team and through a "Brotherhood" can you achieve the impossible.

"Basketball is a Brotherhood" is the integrated, digitally led marketing and advertising revolution that does something no other brand has done: it allows today's greatest players to interact and inspire the next generation of athletes, putting them side-by-side on and off the court. This season the consumer will be able to go to http://www.adidasbasketball.com and experience adidas Basketball through a series of web episodes and other creative on-line activies that show the true meaning of Brotherhood. "Basketball is a Brotherhood" will introduce the adidas "Team Signature" footwear and apparel collections.

"The adidas 'Team Signature' products have been designed and engineered directly with and for the best basketball athletes in the world. It is signature product for all players, not just for sports icons," stated Lawrence Norman, Vice President of adidas Global Basketball. "The product collection features adidas' best technologies and fabrications, and will be featured not only on adidas All-Stars, but also on other NBA, NCAA and grassroots players and teams."

adidas "Team Signature" is a representation of the best adidas Basketball has to offer. The footwear collection will have three distinct launches starting in October 2007, with the Team Signature Lightspeed, the lightest adidas icon basketball shoe ever created; followed by the Team Signature Lightswitch featuring a customized cushion system in November 2007; and finally in February 2008, the Team Signature Pro Model, the 35th anniversary of one of the industry's most iconic and loved basketball shoes. Each of the "Team Signature" shoes will come in a variety of different player editions, for example Team Signature Lighspeed T-MAC Edition and Team Signature Lightswitch Gilbert Arenas Edition.

About adidas

adidas has been providing innovative products for the world's best athletes for more than 50 years, from NBA legends such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to today's superstars, such as Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady.

On April 11, 2006 the adidas Group and the National Basketball Association signed an 11-year global merchandising partnership that will make the adidas brand the official uniform and apparel provider for the NBA, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the NBA Development League (D-League) beginning with the 2006-07 NBA season.

[Kori Ellis]

TS Lightspeed Duncan - $100 (http://www.shopadidas.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2760309&shopGroup=R&cp=2019627.2039609.2012797&parentPage=family&colorId=)
http://adus.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pADIDAS1-3783780_pattern_w345a.jpg

[E20]

Almost resembles Lebrons shoe.

[duncan228]

Thanks for the pic/link Kori.
I like the shoes, and I really like the adidas campaign.

I'm going to take the bumped thread opportunity to repeat myself:
If anyone hasn't poked around their site yet you really should.
There's some great stuff.
Be sure to watch the entire sit down conversation Duncan has with Arenas.
The link to launch it:

http://www.adidas.com/sports/basketball/content/vertical/country/us/default.asp#

And for fans here that are not necessarily Duncan fans there's plenty of stuff with Garnett, Arenas, Howard, TMac, and Billups.

Also, you can text "Duncan" to adidas (234327) and you'll get a text back and a phone call with a message from Duncan. If you've got kids that are fans let them do it. It's pretty cool when their face lights up. "I got a call from Tim Duncan!"

[SpursIndonesia]

IMHO, behaving as a team & Gilbert Arenas doesn't really compute in my book. :fro

[carina_gino20]

:lol at Timmy:

Gilbert: What do you wear football pads for?

Timmy: Dude! I get beat up more than you! And it's legal when they do it to me! :lol