Why Adidas did not pick up the "Break Free" ad

We as humans like to see content which is emotionally driven. In December last year, the German Director and Filmacademy Baden-Wuerttemberg’s student, Eugen Merher published a mock advertising advert, which was turned down by Adidas. However, after publishing his work on Youtube it started to gain great attention. Currently, the video has been seen more than 12 million times. There have been queries regarding how Adidas could could have said no to an advert which has drawn so much attention on social media. The advert entitled “Break Free” tells the story of an aging marathon runner living in a retirement home who is not able to leave, as there is always a barrier stopping him.

From a storytelling perspective, the story is emotionally driven and it is a great example where storytelling is used at its best. For a brand however, emotions and storytelling are not the only parameter which it needs to consider. It also needs to take into account the strategy behind the brand. Therefore the “Break Free” Ad can be considered a great piece of emotional storytelling. However, it might not work for Adidas, since the “Break Free” mentality relates more to Nike’s “Just do It”, mantra.

Consequently, from one perspective by Adidas refusing the advert it might show that they have been afraid to be “open-minded”. However, Campaignlive has explained that the advert might not align with Adidas’ brand strategy for their category. They note:

“The real question here is not whether "Break Free" is emotive – it’s whether the ad evokes positive emotion that will lead to profitable brand growth for the Adidas running brand”.

Campaignlive further argues that Adidas is doing it right by not using ‘Break Free’, since they see how this advert has gone viral because of the great work of a student. Therefore, as a Brand it is important to tell emotional stories, as well as ensuring this goes together with the brand strategy to develop a great result. It is this focus on a long-term strategy and not only building a strategy over one campaign objective, which we at Steel & Feather aim for. By doing so we can ensure that your brand can build a long-term brand strategy by telling a story using archetypes. It is by building a brand story through storytelling and emotions over a long-term perspective which drives success for brands. Therefore in the case of Adidas, they did get it right by refusing the great emotional work from Eugen Merher, not because the work was not good enough, but because it did not fit with their brand strategy.

#BrandStorytelling #Strategy #BrandIdentity #Branding