Manchester United's kit launch set to be Adidas' most successful online campaign ever
Manchester United’s new Adidas kit is the fastest value generating football kit launch campaign ever after it generated $2.3m in social media value in its first three days according to sport and entertainment intelligence advisor Repucom.
The figures show that Manchester United are now the biggest football value driver for Adidas who took over as kit supplier for the Premiership club from Nike with a $1.2bn (£750m) 10 year deal.
The new 2015/16 season kit was launched using Adidas Football’s #BeTheDifference hashtag and it has almost delivered the same amount of value in the first three days as Real Madrid’s campaign has achieved since launching in June, so far producing over $2.6m in social media value for the brand. A core part of the campaign was a video that went live last weekend, created by The Corner, which featured current stars including Wayne Rooney and Ashley Young alongside standout moments from the clubs illustrious history.
Repucom attributes the success to the club’s activation and the level of engagement from its social media fan base, even though Spanish giants Real Madrid have 123 million social media fans compared to Manchester United’s 76 million.
The Manchester United social media accounts produced 38 posts relating directly to the kit launch, across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, more than any other Adidas club since June. By comparison AC Milan produced 16 posts, with Bayern Munich and Chelsea both producing 36 whilst Real Madrid posted 28 times since June.
Max Barnett, head of digital UK&I, Repucom said the “figures so far for the brand are encouraging” and that the success showed “building an engaged social fan base is key and something other teams around the world should be looking at.”
Since June the big four Adidas kit clubs have generated over $4.6m in value for the brand via social media, while the average value per post has been $40,000.
When the Manchester United figures are included at the end of the campaign, Adidas can expect to have received well over $7 million in media value generated through social media alone.