Ad of the Day: Adidas transforms ancient tomb into 3D billboard to reveal Saudi kit
Known as Hegra or Mada’in Salih, the archeological site features many rock-cut burial places.
Adidas has revealed the 2023-24 Saudi Arabia home football kit in a huge way and it’s got the internet talking, once again.
In the eye-catching stunt, created by Havas Middle East, viewers see the green jersey flowing in the desert wind as a passerby looks up at it, showing the scale of the historical building.
It was only two years ago that the area was opened to tourists, after largely remaining untouched for thousands of years. Thankfully, this Adidas activation has been created using CGI by VertexCGI with no harm done to the tomb.
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Social media users have been quick to praise the video after the brand’s marketing director Paul O’Connor posted it yesterday. It is part of the sport giant’s ‘Impossible Is Nothing’ campaign that first launched in 2004.
Similarly, at the start of the year, Adidas unveiled a CGI billboard celebrating Lionel Messi’s World Cup win that resulted in an eye-watering 250m impressions – even though it didn’t actually exist.
At the time, O’Connor told The Drum there was a lot of learnings from that ad campaign: “The ROI was incredible versus a physical activation. CGI is definitely the future.”
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