#AdidasPocketCoach uses cricket to target non-metro audience

The sport that never goes stale or stays stagnant in this country, no points for guessing- cricket is one such game that fumes fervor in every other kid growing up within the border. Adidas, the sports apparel brand rolls out a campaign for every such kid who hopes to turn their passion into a profession.

Adidas coaching the hidden hero

Lack of technological maturity and cricket coaching facilities in the country keeps the lower strata distant from chasing their dreams towards the stadiums, who also happen to be the major chunk of our population. Adidas initiates to fill in this gap by converting its social portal into a training space which is open for mass absorption.

Constructing a generous campaign to hand hold cricket enthusiasts to surpass through hurdles, Adidas brought out a video which introduced their campaign that looks out to provide complimentary coaching to such individuals deprived of formal training.

The introductory video building on facts suggests that despite having thousands of coaching centers they are concentrated only in the six major cities of the country, but, 73% of the India resides outside these metropolitan urban settings. This is where the big dreams are crushed in small towns due to a shortage of guidance towards their talent.

The video captures young boys revering about their cricket heroes and even how lack of faster internet access keeps them away viewing coaching videos as the brand claims that majority of the country still runs on 2G

Leveraging Facebook feature

Social media has been kind to advertisers and brands giving them massive choices and chances to experiment with their multiple features to innovate right from GIFs, videos, photos, 360-degree photos, carousel ads, and more.

For this particular campaign, Adidas inclined towards the trouble-free Facebook slideshow feature making it further interactive than photos or GIFs and are quicker to load than videos. This slideshow feature allows seven static slides to auto-play into a 15-second short video, lighter in weight which loads five times quicker than a video.

Through the video, the campaign firstly introduced the feature and then their campaign in brief through their video thus summarizing the first layer of their campaign.

Cricket coach in your pocket

They titled it #AdidasPocketCoach, which deciphered the entire campaign through their hashtag as to how the brand is providing coaching through your phone.

Through a range of infographics the brand provided tricks to excel the art of cricket.  These skills were put across using strict cricket terms using seven images in all, but five pictorially representing the actions.

These infographics taught viewers to ace the skills of square cut, straight dive like Rohit Sharma, leg cutter, off spin, hookshot, and even fielding.

Campaign score sheet

Keeping star cricketer, Virat Kohli, as their ambassador and including glimpses of him in their video, the brand already portrayed its loyalty towards cricket, and through this campaign, it just reassures its admiration towards the sport. Motivated to contribute from their end, they released a thoughtful campaign, showing empathy towards the passion of cricket in India.

The campaign was unique, detailed and well thought of, though the execution was not well-timed considering the end of a lengthy cricket season post T20 World Cup and Indian Premier League. Despite its late release, the brand fame aided their campaign as their video itself garnered 221k views, 187 shares, and 4.6k positive reactions. To add on, the slideshow of the tricks also received 15k reactions on an average.

The mode of communication of the video was English which came across as the only flaw in the campaign, which talks about reaching out to smaller towns as it somehow contradicts itself.

Apart from that, sticking to its main purpose of coaching, #AdidasPocketCoach is one such campaign cricket themed which manages to rise above despite its off season presence in the social sphere.