2022 Gold Social Media

Agency: Twitter Next

Client: adidas

Campaign Name: adidas #FastestFollower

Campaign Overview

Adidas tasked the team with driving hype and desire for its new X Speedflow football boots, positioning them as the ‘fastest football footwear on the planet’.

Strategy

Footballers are always looking for an edge. Their successes on the pitch fuels fans' competitiveness off it. Everyday on Twitter, rival fans brag about their team's ability to out-think, out-muscle and out-run opponents. The campaign challenged fans to prove their worth.

The X Speedflow boots were created in collaboration with some of the world's quickest players, including Mo Salah and Lionel Messi. Using the latest textile technologies, the boots enhanced the games of those who play as fast with their mind as they do with their feet.

To get football fans to truly understand X Speedflow represented speed, the idea needed to go beyond passive consumption and create a deeper connection with the product. The initiative sought out and reward fans who could prove themselves, on Twitter, to be both physically and mentally fast enough to grace the pitch in the world's fastest football boots.

Creativity

@XSpeedflow was created:a custom-built Twitter account - the first of its kind - that only the fastest could follow. Competitors kept an eye on a livestream acting as a starter gun, signalling the moment the account was live, kicking off a pan-European race to hit the follow button and get the boots.

Only one person per day could follow the account before it was automatically locked, with #FastestFollower instantly celebrated in the promoted live stream. Other players who tried to follow the account automatically received a tweet from @XSpeedflow 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 by @XSpeedflow and adidas with a personalised message from a top football player. This included Gigi Windaldum for a winning Liverpool fan, Achraf Hakimi for the winner in Paris and Joao Felix for the fastest from Spain. Each of them signed and sent a pair of X Speedflow boots to the winner.

Results

• More than nine million competitors: higher than the population of Austria
• One follow request per minute
• A bespoke hack of Twitter, representing a first on the platform
• Professional footballers played, including Ian Wright (who won)

The Team

Twitter Next - Sean Bone, Senior Creative - Sam Waymont, Senior Brand Strategist - Rick Smith, Sr. Technical Program Manager

adidas - Lara Bean, Senior Manager - Jenny Kam, Assistant Manager - Jonny Silcock, Senior Manager - Maria Cortes, Digital Specialist - Victor Sharp, Senior Manager - Alexandre Heckel, Publishing Specialist - Ayesha Brown, Community Manager