We reinvented the football transfer announcement with a music video that bought creators from two worlds together - footballer Paul Pogba and grime MC Stormzy. Pogba was given a stage to showcase his style and Stormzy gave him the soundtrack to do it. This hard-hitting collaboration was ‘accidentally’ leaked on social to break the news ahead of traditional media. An accidental leak, over 30m views and 400 news articles later, we put adidas at the heart of a story that reinvented the most clichéd part of the football calendar. And made it look cool as hell.

Despite the media frenzy that accompanies the transfer window, big money transfers don’t have cultural impact. They’re too clichéd: all suits and scarves. As a result, the news announcements rarely live up to the hype. Music is a massive part of football culture, especially for our target audience of city based, football mad, teenagers. We spotted the opportunity that adidas is one of the few brands that has roots in both and so we needed to authentically create something that delivered on a sporting and cultural level.

So our challenge was to unite creators from the worlds of sport and music together to land the football transfer with an attitude that would transcend into street culture.

30m views

3m shares.

400 news articles.

Vice quoted the football transfer as ‘the most important 45 seconds that’s ever happened.’

The Times even tried to explain the lyrics.

adidas Football’s most shared post ever.

adidas share price peaked in the days following the announcement.

Our challenge was to unite creators from the worlds of sport and music together to land the football transfer with an attitude that would transcend into street culture.

Music is a massive part of football culture, especially for our target audience of city based, football mad, teenagers. We spotted the opportunity that adidas is one of the few brands that has roots in both and so we needed to authentically create something that delivered on a sporting and cultural level.

Adidas challenged us to use the hype around the most expensive football transfer in history - Paul Pogba’s move to Manchester United - to position adidas Football in a unique way that would genuinely appeal to the brand’s target audience.