IMPOSSIBLE GOALKEEPER
Just before the start of the UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament, adidas turned one of Vienna’s best-known landmarks, the Prater ferris wheel, into a huge image of the Czech national goalkeeper, Petr Cech. At a whooping 53m tall, this gigantic installation was visible far beyond the Prater entertainment park and the nearby public viewing sites. In the installation, Cech had eight arms that constantly rotated with the ferries wheel. The erection of the metal construction started on May 13 and was finished just before the launch of the tournament on the night of June 5, 2008. This advertising landmark also hosted the official adidas press conference prior to the tournament.
Advertising Agency: TBWA/Berlin
Creative Director: Stefan Schmidt
Creative: Marco Bezerra, Emiliano Treierveiler
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OLIVER KAHN BRIDGE
If you travelled to Munich for the first game of the FIFA World Cup in 2006, chances are you saw this huge installation, which shows an enormous Oliver Kahn (the then German national team goalkeeper) diving across the motorway. The 65-m installation managed to bypass the law forbidding advertising on the German Autobahn, and was the only piece of advertising adidas conducted in Germany during the tournament. Over 4 millions people commuted through the installation and many more saw it in the press. In its first week the Oliver Kahn bridge was displayed on double-page spreads in leading magazines including Focus, Stern, Autobild and Fortune. It was also picked up by newspapers including the New York Times and the Financial Times.
Advertising Agency: TBWA/Berlin
Creative Director: Stefan Schmidt, Kurt-Georg Dieckert
Creative: Helge Bloch, Boris Schwiedrzik
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IMPOSSIBLE HUDDLE
For the duration of the UEFA EURO 2008 football tournament, TBWA/Berlin transformed the main hall of Zurich’s Central Station into a large-scale celebration of team spirit. Eleven European football players (all sponsored by adidas, naturally) formed the Impossible huddle. The bodies of the footballers represented were 3D-scanned as were their faces and hairstyles, to ensure that the sculptures were faithful to the originals. It took 40 trucks to move the installation components from the production sites in southern Germany to Switzerland, where they were assembled in the station.
The Swiss rail authority reported that an estimate 13 million people passed through the station during the three-week period the sculptural installation was in site, and at 17m high and approximately 30m wide, it was impossible to miss. Add to this the fact that various news titles such as the Financial Times, Die Welt, Gazzetta dello Sport, Le Parisien and the BBC featured the campaign on their front pages or online editions, plus the fact that it was picked up by dozens of blog worldwide.
Advertising Agency: TBWA/Berlin
Creative Director: Stefan Schmidt, Markus Ewertz
Creative: Erik Gonan, Hendrik Scweder
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FOOTBALL FRESCO
During the German-hosted 2006 FIFA World Cup, adidas wanted to get across the message that they cooperate with the best football players on the planet. Rather than run a traditional poster campaign, the creatives at TBWA/Berlin decided it would be far more impressive to create a huge Renaissance-style fresco on the ceiling of the main lobby of Cologne Central Station. Within minutes of the fresco’s unveiling, it was featured on national German Television and press covered it throughout the World Cup. More than 8.5 million people saw the frersco in the flesh during the course of the tournament.
Advertising Agency: TBWA/Berlin
Creative Director: Stefan Schmidt, Kurt-Georg Dieckert
Creative: Helge Bloch, Boris Schwiedrzik
