Adidas have launched a new pair of football boots, and with them, a campaign graced by none of the world’s best footballers. Seriously. Adidas sponsor the World Cup 2014 winning side and they don’t include any of them? Instead they bring back Suárez despite having distanced themselves from him due to his ferocious appetite for Italian.

There is absolutely zero football action in the 1:15 clip. The one goal that is scored is done so via Benzema’s head. And this is an ad that is meant to get people to buy shoes.

The message seems to be: go on, put these on. You’ll look a right knob. The other players will hate you. And that hatred will fuel you to be a better player. Somebody at Adidas HQ is clearly excited about the new Star Wars film…

Yup, that’s the message they’re promoting alongside the garish new shoe (that seems to be the only quality that is transported through the ad). There will be haters. At least they didn’t spell it with a ‘z’ at the end.

While not included in the ad, colleagues from Die Nationalmannschaft did receive their new boots and have been showing them off:

Still. No mention of any features.

A look at some the coverage generated by the ‘striking new boots‘. No mention of why these multicoloured boots should be any better than the pink and blue ones Puma released before the World Cup.

I remember when Adidas released the first model of the Predator boot. It was all about the features of the shoe. The extra curl. The control. And they showed players playing with them.

Now that’s an ad for a football boot.

A journo’s perspective on PR – now and in the future

A really great piece about how the hacks see the flacks – now and in the future. A quick summary in bullets, but I do recommend giving the whole piece a read.

• PRs will provide more ‘ready to go’ content to like research and information to journalists
• Content creation is going to be vital: we’ll need to think about visuals and how our stories translate to screens of all sizes. That means becoming less reliant on words – which is going to be a challenge
• Make it interactive – give the journo (and thereby the reader) something to do

How often do you look at your phone?

Earlier this week I came across a film by Buzzfeed about how often American youths check their phone. Participants were asked to install a free app called Moment on their iPhone to track how often they pick it up up and how long they then use it.

It got me thinking: how often do I look at my phone?

So, for the last few days I have submitted myself to the same experiment: 77 minutes on average a day, 26 pickups on average a day.

• Jan 21 – 90 minutes, 32 pickups; 2.8 min/pickup
• Jan 22 – 86 minutes, 34 pickups; 2.5 min/pickup
• Jan 23 – 77 minutes, 26 pickups; 2.9 min/pickup
• Jan 24 – 55 minutes, 24 pickups; 2.3 min/pickup
• Jan 25 – 77 minutes, 14 pickups; 5.5 min/pickup

According to the film, the average Moment user picks up their phone 43 times a day, while Americans spend an average of 3 hours a day on their phone.

What does that tell me?

I’m well below the American average… the more time I have, the more likely I am to use my phone. I do think that the phrase used at the beginning of the film is quite apt: for many people, their phone is their ‘boredom box’. The go to device we always have on us regardless of where we are and that we whip out whenever we have some downtime.

What about you?

How often do you use your phone?

Bits and bytes

• Facebook are cracking down on fake news – cue trolls reporting branded content as ‘fake news’ and creating massive headaches for marketing departments around the world
• The Oatmeal is currently blowing up Kickstarter with his new card game called Exploding Kittens. With $3 million raised in three days (on an original target of $10,000, the project has 25 days left to run and will likely break all the platforms records). He’s also shared this rather brilliant exchange of texts with a hapless ‘social media advisor’
• Everyone’s been talking about James Blunt’s letter to Chris Bryant – and rightfully so. There should be more letters that start with ‘You classist gimp’ and include the word ‘wazzock’
• A woman made $4.9 million posting films of her unwrapping Disney toys to Youtube last year. Four point nine million US dollars. Her most popular film showing her making sparkly dresses out of Play Doh has racked up an insane 183 million views
• Speaking of being successful, SLP Consulting looked at UK brands and how they use YouTube – turns out they have some opportunities for improvement!
• How good are the party leaders at using Twitter?
• WTF if my target audience?

Videos of the week

Genius move by the police in Dover, Delaware. One of their patrol officers was caught lip syncing to Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off. The Dover PD released the clip to their YouTube channel where it’s been viewed 25 million times. I love how he curtails his performance as pedestrians pass and of course the epic performance at 2:31 during the rap.

Life-size pac man + unsuspecting passer-by + electro = a great clip promoting water Bud Light.

I can’t ski, but seeing Candide Thovex go flying down a slope makes me want to strap in. Wow.

It’s this kind of bonkers ‘through the eyes of daredevils and pro athletes’ perspective that GoPro cameras can provide – no surprise then that the NHL and GoPro have this week announced a partnership. Get that slow-mo button ready.

And finally

The US collectively lost its marbles this week when an American Football team was accused of cheating their way to victory in the Superbowl. Apparently, they deflated some of the egg-shaped-thingies they insist on calling footballs, making them easier to handle. Baffling. Don’t both teams play with the same egg-shaped-thingy? Anyway, Rachel Maddow had a bit of fun with some of the coverage…