adidas v. nike ... the final showdown

These are the famous adidas "sistine chapel ads" painted in a German train station ceiling. from Advertising for peanuts.

vs.

from Hidden Persuader.

The 2006 World Cup is finally getting exciting and with the nearly worldwide exposure, it isn't only a war between the 32 participating teams; it is an epic battle of logos and sales. Sportswear giants Adidas and Nike are vying like mad to get their brands in front of the predicted 32 billion TV viewers, and with Adidas's position as the World Cup official sponsor, Nike may have reasons to start shaking in their footballer boots.

Adidas has so far spent about 225 million on this World Cup endeavor, in a smart marketing move they're milking this sponsorship gig for all that it is worth. With their recent Reebock conquest, the bragging rights as the global leader in soccer footwear and the new World Cup matchball, Adidas is running firm.

But …

With all official world-cup media covered by Adidas's three stripes, Nike has taken an unusual guerilla route and pulled out all the stops with a new campaign, Joga Bonito [play beautiful in Portuguese]. Nike has taken to sponsoring Joga 3 games in Europe, a series of 3 on 3 matches for under-20 players. They have even teamed up with Google to create joga.com, a myspace-esque site where soccer players can socialize and plan small matches. This football movement, as Nike would like you to see it, features the likes of Eric Cantona and Brazilian football star Ronaldinho. The spots focus on the presumably forgotten values of the game, skill, honor, joy, heart and team spirit; but wait, is this the same go-for-broke, blood-sweat-and-tears Nike that America knows and loves? Either way, Nike is making an even bigger name for themselves in the soccer world, ironically with the younger, counter-culture generations of South America and Europe.

So who knows who will win the world cup this year, definitely not the US and my bet is probably somewhere south of the Equator, but the 'marketing cup' is what we ad-oholics are probably concerned with and in the end we all know it comes down to profit profit profit. We'll have to wait and see where the billions of dollars in expected postmatch sales fall.


** Come out and watch the Holland and Argentina match on wednesday. I'll be at Fado on 4th, so come cheer on your favorite brand [Holland - Nike / Argentina - Adidas]