Football is changing. Premiership players are being challenged for respect by Freestylers and Academy players who make play look like an art form, not just a competition. Young, urban, players aren’t looking up to Pogba so much as street players and Instagram stars. So, if you’re an establishment brand like adidas, how do you connect with this audience of “Creators” – the players that set the pace for the wider audience around them? You throw the rule book away. You ditch traditional media channels. You create a new product. And you involve these “creators” in every step of development and launch. Introducing GLITCH. A product innovation and a community which is built, managed and maintained by a team of social influencers.

This new football boot is ONLY available for purchase through a mobile app, designed and built for the new football stars - urban street players whose freestyle play is as dependent on the style as it is the score. We intentionally started small, with a core group of influencers and urban footballers in London. This allowed the community to grow gradually and organically without abusing the reach of our contributors. Influencers were empowered and highly engaged throughout, actively helping to shape the community by deciding who became a part of it and contributing towards the customer support and homepage sections of the app with peer-to-peer advice, product demos and promotional User Generated Content. There were reward and value exchange mechanics built into the app too, encouraging interaction and engagement to exist beyond a single purchase with free skins and extra referral codes on offer for the most active users.