Wunderman Thompson: adidas Uncancelled Cup

With live sports on hold, adidas created virtual events online

When COVID-19 brought live sport to a halt, the European Championship was one of many cancelled tournaments. Sports fans despaired. Then Wunderman Thompson Turkey and adidas came to the rescue, recreating the Championship in FIFA 20. Broadcast on PlayStation, the tournament saw footballers and celebrities battle it out from their sofas at home. Just like a real match cup, the Uncancelled Cup had live broadcasts, commentary, and post-match debates. As the game was played in real time, commentators could share their opinions without any time lag.

The matches were streamed live to adidas’ Facebook Live, IGTV, and YouTube Live platforms in Turkey where the audience, watching in real time, reached twice the size of the audience for a normal Turkish Super League game held in a stadium.

The project drove a 6% increase in Instagram followers; while during the campaign 23% of new visitors to adidas.com came from The Uncancelled Cup, generating a 35% revenue increase. Site traffic increased by 65%, with a 12% decrease in cost per click.

adidas shopping app downloads have doubled since the beginning of the campaign, and brand search volume reached over 800,000 – a 22% increase on normal performance, equivalent to Black Friday traffic. Conversion rates have increased from 0.8% to 1.3%, which is higher even than the adidas seasonal discount period.

The impact on gamers has also been impressive. Gamer splits in total adidas sessions reached 16% and April/May gamer revenue share was 19% of total revenue. This has resulted in a doubling of revenue and tripling of the gamer conversion rate.

Wunderman Thompson worked with AVMG, GroupM, MediaCom and Ogilvy PR on the launch of the campaign.