To promote Kevin Garnett’s new athletic shoe from adidas, the Garnett 3, online advertising agency EVB, San Francisco, has created a microsite to “Step Inside KG” at www.adidas.com/sports/basketball/content/garnett3/country/us/. In it, the Minnesota Timberwolves forward is portrayed as a warrior, kid, hero, leader and comedian.
The site picks up where the new spot for the shoe, “What’s Inside,” leaves off. In the effects-driven commercial, Garnett portrays a military leader in combat, a black-clad superhero, a child playing tag on a playground, an ancient gladiator and a stand-up comedian. In the closing scene, he walks onto a basketball court in a dimly-lit gym with light illuminating him from behind. “Impossible is Nothing” a super declares. Noam Murro of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, directed the spot through TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco, and 180 TBWA, Amsterdam.
On the Web site, Garnett stands on a dark court with a basketball under his arm and a menu at his feet. Clicking on one of the five options will allow you to take a closer look into his various personalities.
Describing Garnett as one of the most “incredible and dynamic basketball players in the NBA,” executive creative director at EVB Jason Zada explained that the athlete embodies all of the featured personas when playing the game. “He brings comedic moments onto the court and he brings a bit of being a gladiator onto the court, so all of these different personalities are things that he uses and he is all about on the court.”
WORLDS APART
In each of the five different environments on the site–a coliseum, playground, urban landscape, alien battlefield and comedy club–visitors to the site can find hidden elements and control some of the action on the screen. In the playground scene, for example, a young version of Garnett takes center stage. On the second floor of a nearby building a boy is visible in a window frame. Clicking on that boy causes him to throw water balloons on the area below.
In another place and time, a building is ablaze with a woman precariously standing on the ledge. Clicking on her image sets Kevin Garnett the superhero into action. He swoops up from the ground and rescues her. In a voiceover Garnett relates, “I’m the hero, I’m saving the game.” Once the woman is safely on the ground he continues, “I’m the one getting the rebound when we need it. I’m bringing it down. I’m calling for it. I’m hitting buckets. I’m talking trash.”
The sound bites came from on set interviews during the commercial shoot. Instead of having Garnett narrate the action and sound scripted, his spontaneous comments about himself and basketball are meant to make the site feel intimate. His commentary complements the site since he naturally uses references that fit into the theme, like referring to himself as a gladiator on the court, Zada said.
Clicking though the various environments also reveals hidden things like behind-the-scenes footage and downloadable wallpaper. To unlock the downloads, a visitor must click on all of the elements of a page a certain number of times. For this reporter, the formula was elusive, but for the targeted group of young guys who are into video games and adept at exploring online environments, deciphering the code comes naturally. And in line with this audience’s interests, the video clips are formatted for the PlayStation Portable (PSP).
Having watched adults and kids navigate through the site, Zada related that through small visual cues “kids and teens just get it.” Therefore, the site was intentionally designed to be subtle.
WINNING TECHNIQUE
Though the settings online are similar to those in the spot “What’s Inside,” the interactive agency did not use any of the material from the commercial. In order to create the seamless environments that appear on the site, staffers at EVB needed material suited to their particular technical needs. The goal, Zada noted, was to pull from the look of the spot and create the same feel and style.
The site allows visitors to engage with Garnett’s many personalities on a deeper level, but the client wanted more than engaging content for the project. For this online initiative, Zada explained that adidas wanted the Garnett 3 to be presented in a way that had never been done online. The site was developed in Flash 8, which allows for compositing in real time. The video for the site was shot against a green screen and then composited into 3D environments. This required the shop to create the 3D worlds and composite the video into them at a level similar to that of broadcast.
“Having all that happen in real time within Flash was what we kind of considered as pretty groundbreaking,” Zada said. “Then also getting to see the shoe in–there’s definitely ways of looking at a shoe in 3D on the Internet, but not really ways that we’ve seen where the actual player was in the shoe within the environment that you could actually look at in 3D.” This means that on the site, a visitor can slightly manipulate the images of the shoes Garnett is wearing in order to see them from different perspectives. Each environment offers a look at a specific aspect of the shoe.
Though the site was conceived with exploration in mind, one need not look far if he is interested in getting this hot item. There is no key to unlocking your spending power. Links to buy the shoes, find a store nearby, or even enter a sweepstakes to win them, are clearly displayed throughout the process of “Getting Inside KG.”
