adidas is a leading football brand in Japan. But the association with the Japan National football team is not as high as it should be. People know that there is an adidas logo on the chest of the uniform but it doesn’t mean anything to them. We needed to activate the logo on the chest and communicate the deeper meaning of Japanese football in order to solidify our leading football brand position in Japan. Our campaign strategy was not just to inspire people but also to enable them to participate in the World Cup and let them become part of the team. By focusing on schools and regions where the team members come from, we hoped to engage the public in a sincere and innovative way to further reinforce why adidas is the leading football brand from both a national perspective and a grassroots level.

Our strategy was as opposed to create and run a standard football spot, we created the movement in a grassroots level by connecting with the school aged audience and inspiring them to come together and get behind the national team on their journey to world cup. Sky Comic project, which spans 13 cities over five weeks, is a creation of 13 massive 300 square meter individual comic strip panels painted by national team supporters from all over Japan. The individual panels are photographed from the sky and uploaded to website where the entire story comes together. The website includes Behind-the-scenes videos as well as photos of the teamwork that went into the project. Fans who couldn't be at the event participated by sending messages from their PCs, mobile phones, and Twitter, which were included in the website's word balloon feed to become part of the comic. Marketing campaigns often receive accolades and awards, but it isn’t often that we’ve set a world record in the process. And the best part of this project is making FIFA world cup meaningful to children. Approximately 13,000 school aged supporters participated to Sky Comic event took place at 13 cities. Over 50,000 people were involved in project digitally. And the project generated over US$ 6,600,000 worth of earned media with 0 investments in paid media. The sales of 2010 Japan National Jerseys were +22% versus the target. The campaign also had a strong impact for adidas’ football brand equity raising scores by 33% according to a Nielsen study following the World Cup. Conversely scores for competitors such as Nike, Puma and Asics stayed constant or decreased in the same period.