How adidas achieved significantly more purchases from Gen Z with its "Be The Inspiration" campaign
How adidas achieved significantly more purchases from Gen Z with its "Be The Inspiration" campaign
By diving deep into its past performance, adidas teamed up with Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS) to ensure that its creatives for “Be The Inspiration” would truly resonate with the target audience.
By diving deep into its past performance, adidas teamed up with Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS) to ensure that its creatives for “Be The Inspiration” would truly resonate with the target audience.
Winner of the ZMS Partner Awards 2022
adidas recently won the Data & Insights Category in the ZMS Partner Awards 2022 with their "Be The Inspiration" campaign. The Partner Awards “Marketing Excellence 2022” highlight outstanding and innovative campaigns that Zalando partner brands developed and ran together with Zalando Marketing Services.
The Story
ZMS’ mission is connecting brands to consumers and this campaign took that sentiment to another level. By examining consumer insights from previous campaigns, adidas and ZMS crafted a story and creative strategy that would find optimal resonance with its target audience for this activation, Gen Z. Through a ZMS Insights survey, adidas discovered not only which visual approaches have the clearest impact with Gen Z consumers, but also that the value action gap between Gen Z’s beliefs and their shopping behaviors was something this generation struggles with, and that adidas could help be part of the solution. adidas found that although adidas’ customers care deeply about sustainability, they really struggle to translate their values into actions when they go to stores or shop online. Thus the “Be The Inspiration” campaign was brought to life!
The Goal
- Drive awareness of adidas as a brand focusing on sustainability by increasing Zalando customers’ association of adidas with sustainability.
- Target consumer engagement by enabling self-expression, and attracting and engaging Gen Z consumers who share the same values around sustainability.
- Have strong commercial impact by ultimately driving sell-through of shared more sustainable footwear and special collection products.
The Strategy
ZMS insights
First adidas teamed up with ZMS Insights, making use of the ZMS Insights Dashboard & Zalando Attitude Behavior Gap Report. In order to inspire positive action in its target audience, adidas decided to shy away from a preachy narrative, removing the friction of “sustainability at the cost of fashion” by bridging the value action gap in customer shopping behavior.
What’s the Zalando Attitude Behavior Gap Report?
This report explores the gap between consumers’ sustainability attitudes and behaviors. Zalando conducted a study with Zalando customers from Germany, Sweden and England. The results of this work informed our consumer survey, in which we interviewed 2,500 consumers in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, France and Germany to better understand why many struggle to translate their sustainability beliefs into actions. Armed with the results of these efforts, we reached out to our industry colleagues and assembled their ideas on how the industry can promote sustainability and enable consumers to make more sustainable decisions.
ZMS Creative
After this, with the help of ZMS Creative and ZMS Media, they created a 360° campaign,
driven by the data. Adidas also took the strategic decision to launch during a peak traffic and sales period, ensuring that the campaign was a commercial success.
The brand also focused on a specific multi-faceted communication approach connecting Gen Z with the people surrounding them.
Based on the valuable insights they got, adidas:
- Curated their sustainability assortment taking into consideration the seasonality aspect to empower consumer choices
- Had a media plan split in 2 phases - “Launch” and “Gifting”.
- Focused on a specific multi-faceted communication approach connecting Gen Z with the people surrounding them
Influencers
23 influencers delivered Instagram Posts (29), Stories (31) and TikToks (14) each sharing their own sustainable journey and inviting their followers to share theirs in return.
The campaign was very well received with 83% positive comments with over 67% of the audience being 18-24.
The Results
By diving deep into past performance, adidas ensured the creatives would resonate with the target audience. This campaign was a great success for adidas, who had 10% more purchases during the campaign from a Gen Z audience vs an average audience. If you’re a brand selling on Zalando and you want to achieve similar results, just reach out!
Tips for Brands:
- Data driven creative strategy: Clear consumer insights drove decision making and resulted in high engagement
- Consistent storytelling over time: One campaign will not shift the needle in overall perception regarding Sustainability. You must invest in continuous storytelling to have a wider impact on brand perception.
- Commercial alignment: adidas also took the strategic decision to launch during a peak traffic and sales period, ensuring that the campaign was a commercial success.