Sports Marketing Strategy

Forget everything you know about the process of launching a product. Your standard football boot launch has been rolled out a million times. For GLITCH, we broke that pattern.

GLITCH is a campaign driven by consumer participation, from the very beginning. In October 2015, we gathered a group of London kids - and adidas consumers - in conceptual workshops. Over the following months we worked closely with the kids and adidas to evolve and refine what would become 'GLITCH'.

Customer Engagement Marketing

Our consumers influenced every part of the campaign, coming up with the product concept, name, product design and service proposition (including app). By April 2016 our kids were wearing, testing and feeding back on prototype boots. A huge contrast to the standard product dev process, which is usually top secret and kept away from consumers!

The kids remained involved throughout, with regular CVS (Consumer Validation Sessions) taking place in the iris office.

In addition to fostering the GLITCH community pre-launch, we partnered with the London players (rather than professional hero footballers) to create content. GLITCH boots are available only via the exclusive app, unlocked by community invite codes. Consumers can then order their Starter Pack (a one-off three product offering), receive it within 4-hrs in the London area and play in the boots the same day - and if they’re not convinced, they can return them with 14 days, worn, and get a full refund.

In a start to finish collaboration with adidas consumers, we completely transformed our approach to launching a new product – helping to build a startup within adidas with the edgy adaptability of the product itself.