Adidas goes offline for influencer campaign

Dive Brief:

Adidas Originals took its latest influencer marketing campaign offline for the launch of the P.O.D. shoe, using billboards in key areas of New York and Los Angeles to spark reaction on social media, according to Adweek.
The brand worked with Clear Channel Outdoor on 16 billboard locations (eight in New York and eight in L.A.) and created personalized outdoor ads calling out each influencer, including Tony Mui, Brian Alcazar, Tyler Glickman, Seth Fowler, Brandon Jenkins, Pierre Karl, Greg Williams, Sofia Change, Kalysse Anthony, Qias Omar, Jacques Slade, Cole Younger, Will Nichols, Scott Reyes, Lexis Rother and Jessica Wu, according to the report.
Each billboard blasted the influencer's Instagram handle, a message referencing some aspect of their life and a directive to head to a local Adidas store to pick up a pair of shoes, Adweek said.

Dive Insight:

Billboards are one of the oldest forms of advertising, designed to catch people's attention on the go, often along highways or busy city corners.

And while social media has been the go-to venue for brands' influencer campaigns, which rely on somewhat organic messaging from celebrities to blast whatever it is they're marketing, Adidas Originals decided to launch its latest such effort with this throwback to painted billboards and buildings, a unique approach to driving social conversation.

"We tried to put these in high-traffic areas — not just high-traffic areas, but high-quality-traffic areas, meaning trying to get their consumer overlapped with our consumer," Pascha Naderi-Nejad, senior director of Adidas Originals North America, told Adweek. "So if it is a streetwear shopping center area, then try to get the unboxers there. If it's something like a key, city opinion leader, then put it near a freeway that is going to have heavy traffic."

In some cases, fans had to alert influencers to the signs. But according to the brand, it's been a hit, so Adidas plans to expand the campaign, closing out the summer with more outdoor advertising aimed at other influencers in Miami, Atlanta and Chicago, according to the report.