A few months ago I wrote about the ZNE Pulse Collection from adidas which features patterns on the apparel that derives from the actual heartbeat of adidas athletes. I thought it was a unique collection with a dope concept. adidas has been a darling of mine in the marketing arena lately. They’ve only made one mistake in the last year in creating connections to their market.
adidas Originals | ORIGINAL is never finished 3 | A Rare Stumble | Marketing
I recently made an analysis that adidas has been very good at correcting their shifts in content that aren’t quite “right” for lack of a better word. Now in less than a month’s time they make another small stumble. This pre-game anthem featuring producer Mike Will Made It and rapper YG may have gone unnoticed by the marketing department, but if I heard it I’m sure others will hear it.
If there was a way for me to complete this post without telling you the answer to see if you catch the problem I would… Unfortunately I can’t do that. Take a listen to the song in the video below. My first problem is the song is not exactly “good”. In theory it’s dope. Take the heartbeat of an athlete and make it the pocket. Make that sound the bass and then drop lyrics over and you have the potential for a viral song. I mean if Under Armour is connecting with 2Chainz for Cam Newton, then adidas who has had viral success with music and marketing should be able to hit the ball again right?
Not exactly… in the first bars of the song is a reference to a Nike athlete. Go to 0:33 of the video and YG shouts out Penny Hardaway and then repeats the name again as a rhyme. I wrote an article about the slippery slope of influencer marketing addressing Kendrick Lamar. YG is another Compton emcee and as I said in the Kendrick post LA footwear is and will always be the Nike Cortez.
Kendrick Is Los Angeles – Los Angeles Is The Cortez | Kendrick Was Never Reebok | Marketing
As a matter of fact YG actually had a Cortez collab. It may seem like a small thing when the video is dope, but marketing people have to do a better job of hitting every check box when creating content.