She Breaks Barriers: Women deserve more visibility and bigger dreams

For marketers producing interesting new content, regards to aesthetic language and imagery (Buffo, 2016), for the fast-paced changing attitudes and behaviours of current consumers is somewhat difficult. Nonetheless, a creative fashion film (Cope and Maloney, 2016) is an effective way of communicating this content through a riveting narrative masked as a promotional venture.

Figure 1: She Breaks Barriers' first promotional film

Highlighting the challenges women encounter with media reputation in sport, Adidas’ She Breaks Barriers does exactly that. Devising a short yet enticing storyline whilst simultaneously reflecting the brand’s philosophy (Cope and Maloney, 2019, p.123) and shifting with the current attitude of the future is inclusive is somewhat difficult, yet adidas succeeds in both areas.

Figure 2: Adidas' Philosophy

Adidas’ philosophy, which they disseminate through various brand touch-points, is as a brand, they are able to encourage change in the lives of their consumers through sports (Adidas, 2019a). Their short fashion film unpacks this brand ethos, specifically by removing the barriers women encounter in sport. The campaign expands on the social media conversation #CreatorsUnite launched in August 2018. This initiative was created to “fight for equality and level the field” (Adidas, 2018b) as well as to encourage, empower and support the current and next generation of female athletes (Adidas News, 2018).

Adidas is a global high street sensation offering affordable sports-inspired casual and athletic lifestyle products to young, athletic focussed consumers passionate about fitness and sports. Its identity is concentrated around being the best sports company in the world through desirability (Adidas, 2019b). This desirability is created through the strategic marketing tool of mindshare and the consumer. According to Kubina (2008), mind share is centred around a brand having “a share in our minds and they automatically occur when our mind concerns related problematic”.

Figure 3: She Breaks Barriers

When it comes to advertising this campaign, Adidas have not only created one promotional video but a secondary promotional video advocating more visibility for female athletes in the media (Adidas, 2019c). Moreover, the video accentuates the message “if girls don’t see women in sport, they won’t stay in sports” (Adidas, 2019c). Furthermore, alongside the secondary promotional video, the brand debuted a four-part video featuring four female athletes and ESPN host Maria Taylor promoting equal media coverage for women in sports (Bradshaw, 2019) by showcasing how they conquered the setbacks and challenges they faced (Smith, 2019). In doing this, the brand is able to present “something where consumers nowadays can relate to” (Oonk and Corstanje, 2015, pp.22) and resonate a human connection with its consumers.

Figure 4: She Breaks Barriers. More Visibility. Bigger Dreams: secondary promotional video

The primary promotional film premiered last December on an episode of NBC’s Sunday Night Football programme and across Instagram (Adidas, 2018a) and Twitter (Adidas, 2018b). The secondary phase of the initiative aired across the brand’s online platforms in March. Not only did the brand promote the campaign but the four athletes and Maria Taylor endorsed the campaign through their own social media platforms to inspire society to join the movement through the #CreatorsUnite (Instagram, 2019). This created an amalgamation of two promotional tools: promotional film and influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is an up and coming form of word-of mouth marketing taking place on various digital platforms where influencers are “integrated into a brand’s brand communication” (Bakker, 2018).

Along with the promotional endeavours discussed so far, Adidas have formed new partnerships to fulfil the core message of the She Breaks Barriers. For the first time on Twitter, the partnership between the brand, Intersport and the social media platform will “livestream women’s high school volleyball and soccer games” (Adidas News, 2019).

Figure 5, 6 and 7: Adidas' partnership with Twitter and Intersport to livestream women’s high school volleyball and soccer games

So why not get involved? Share your stories and solutions to co-create the future for women in sport with the #CreatersUnite.

Reference List

Adidas. 2018a. She. Breaks. Barriers. [Instagram]. 10 December. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.instagram.com/p/BrMKU7Zgwsp/

Adidas. 2018b. She. Breaks. Barriers. 🗣 Use #CreatorsUnite to Let Us Know the Barriers She Faces in Sport and the Ways We [...]. [Twitter]. 10 December. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://twitter.com/adidas/status/1071953742310690816

Adidas. 2019a. Life Here/Through Sport, We Have the Power to Change Lives. [Online]. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://careers.adidas-group.com/life-here/sport-changes-lifes?locale=en

Adidas. 2019b. Strategy. [Online]. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.adidas-group.com/en/group/strategy-overview/

Adidas. 2019c. She Breaks Barriers: More Visibility Bigger Dreams. [Online]. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfag2c-8eGU

Adidas News. 2018. Adidas Kicks Off Initiative to Break Down Barriers Faced by Women and Girls in Sport. [Online]. [Accessed 5 November 2019]. Available From: https://news.adidas.com/training/adidas-kicks-off-initiative-to-break-down-barriers-faced-by-women-and-girls-in-sport/s/87fa878d-dbe4-4619-826d-f4b71e1b33cc

Adidas News. 2019. Adidas Continues Push for Equality in Sports, Increasing Visibility for Female Athletes. [Online]. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://news.adidas.com/rugby/adidas-continues-push-for-equality-in-sports--increasing-visibility-for-female-athletes/s/2a1bbd18-8a81-4e19-811d-81905304f564

Bakker, D. 2018. Conceptualising Influencer Marketing. Journal of Emerging Trends in Marketing and Management. 1 (1), pp.79-87.

Bradshaw, D. 2019. Adidas Continues Push for Equality in Sports. [Online]. [Accessed 5 December 2019]. Available From: http://sportsagentblog.com/2019/03/15/adidas-continues-push-for-equality-in-sports/

Buffo, S. 2016. Fashion Films and Net-aesthetics. Journalism and Mass Communication. 6 (7), pp. 409-419.

Clarendon, L. 2019. Layshia Clarendon’s Profile. [Online]. [Accessed: 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.instagram.com/layshiac/?hl=en

Cope, J, Maloney, D. 2016. Fashion Promotion in Practice. London, United Kingdom: Fairchild Books.

Harrison, K. 2019. Keni Harrison’s Profile. [Online]. [Accessed: 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.instagram.com/ken_aye_/?hl=en

Kubina, M. 2008. Nontraditional Tools of Marketing on the Internet. Journal of Information, Control and Management Systems. 6(2), pp.65-70.

Oonk, S. and Corstanje, C. 2015. Movement in Fashion: Presenting Fashion Films in The Digital Age. [Online]. Amsterdam: Hogeschool van Amsterdam. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: http://arno.uva.nl/cgi/arno/show.cgi?fid=614533

Patel. R. 2019. Adidas Steps Up Its Game in its “She Breaks Barriers” Campaign. [Online]. [Accessed 5 December 2019]. Available From: http://culture.affinitymagazine.us/adidas-steps-up-its-game-in-its-she-breaks-barriers-campaign/

Sauerbrunn, R. 2019. Becky Sauerbrunn’s Profile. [Online]. [Accessed: 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.instagram.com/reeba04/?hl=en

Smith J. 2019. Adidas Launches Campaign for Equal Media Representation in Sport. [Online]. [Accessed 5 November 2019]. Available From: https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a26786261/adidas-she-breaks-barriers/

Taylor, M. 2019. Maria Taylor’s Profile. [Online]. [Accessed: 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.instagram.com/mariataylor/?hl=en

Figure List

Figure 1: Adidas. 2018. She. Breaks. Barriers. 🗣 Use #CreatorsUnite to Let Us Know the Barriers She Faces in Sport and the Ways We [...]. [Twitter]. 10 December. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://twitter.com/adidas/status/1071953742310690816

Figure 2: Adidas. 2017. Experiencing the #PowerOfSport with the Adidas Fund. [Online] [ Accessed 17 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SYSC-Cd5fI

Figure 3: Adidas. 2019. She Breaks Barriers. [Online]. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.adidas.ca/en/shebreaksbarriers

Figure 4: Adidas. 2019. She Breaks Barriers: More Visibility Bigger Dreams. [Online]. [Accessed 13 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfag2c-8eGU

Figure 5: Schumacher, C. 2019. Adidas to Live Stream Girls’ High School Soccer. [Online]. [Accessed 17 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.soccernation.com/adidas-to-live-stream-girls-high-school-soccer/

Figure 6: Three Stripe Live. 2019. @3stipelive. [Online]. [Accessed 17 December 2019]. Available From: https://twitter.com/3stripelive?lang=en

Figure 7: Adidas. 2019. The @3stipelive Series is Live. [Online]. [Accessed 17 December 2019]. Available From: https://www.adidas.com/us/blog/336475-the-a3StripeliveSeries-is-live