Adidas Shakes Up Conventions On Rugby Campaign

All over the world, corporate sponsors are growing more demanding of sports heroes. These days, old traditional strategies, such as parading a player at an event or on a billboard doesn’t help a brand to cut through the media clutter anymore.

In this environment, German sportswear Adidas has launched a marketing campaign to bring fans closer to New Zealand’s popular All Blacks rugby team by sharing samples of the players’ blood.

The blood was taken from members of All Blacks and mixed into the ink used to make a poster of the team intended to be given to fans who buy a $70 team jersey made by Adidas. Adidas issued 8,000 posters and each comes with a certificate of authenticity.

The campaign is called “Bonded by Blood” and began in July. It will continue through the rugby season and has generated so far 95,000 hits to a website where fans can watch a video of the players while they were donating blood for the campaign.

Adidas says that it is still too early to measure the impact on overall sales, but the poster and jersey combos are almost all sold out.

Tags: rich media