EVB/San Francisco’s MLS Represent campaign for Adidas, featuring 13 original songs aligned with the MLS teams, is being promoted by “Rock the Pitch,” a :30 video playing at www.adidas.com/MLS.
The spot features colorful soccer highlights interspersed with graphic calls to action that promote the songs and encourage viewers to create their own team videos.
“It’s part of a bigger campaign for Adidas and MLS,” said Jason Zada, EVB’s executive creative director and co-founder. “We created an original song for each team and partnered with bands in the 13 team cities.”
The goal of the campaign is to “give fans original music from their local teams and let them do what they want with it,” he said. “The music lets fans represent their team in a powerful way. They can go to the site and take the track and make their own video remix and play it before a game.” Fans go to Jumpcut.com/San Francisco, a division of Yahoo, to make their videos.
Among the bands participating are Bad Brains, Barenaked Ladies, The Rapture and Blackpool Lights. Rock River Music (RRM)/San Francisco managed the musical elements of the campaign.
The spot was produced with soccer footage provided by MLS. “We didn’t have to shoot it, it was done in post with After Effects and motion graphics work done in-house,” Zada said. The animated intro showing three players in action was created by the agency’s animators.
The soundtrack for the spot features clips from three of the team songs, according to Jeff Daniels, RRM’s president.
The spot is currently playing exclusively at the Adidas site, Zada said.
The goal of the campaign is to “get people excited about major league soccer and pull people in who have never seen a game. People are interested in the bands and the heart of the campaign is the songs. People can take the songs and play them and use them in their videos. It becomes part of the culture of soccer.”
FCB Stays Atop The One Club’s Year-End Global Creative Rankings
FCB ended the year repeating its top positions in The One Club for Creativity’s Global Creative Rankings, with FCB New York again crowned Global Agency of the Year and FCB Global finishing as Agency Network of the Year for 2024.
The annual worldwide benchmark report is a comprehensive ranking of agencies, brands, countries, and individuals based on points earned from winning entries in The One Club’s eight global, regional, and local awards shows: The One Show 2024, ADC 103rd Annual Awards, Type Directors Club TDC70 competition, Art Directors Club of Europe ADCE Awards 2024, ONE Asia Creative Awards 2024, and The One Club Denver, San Diego, and Miami chapter 2024 awards programs.
“The Global Creative Rankings is the industry’s most comprehensive and transparent ranking,” said Kevin Swanepoel, CEO, The One Club. “There are no secret weightings in calculating the rankings, and unlike others, it’s not hidden behind a paywall. As the industry’s foremost nonprofit organization for the global creative community, The One Club is in a unique position to provide this free, definitive measure for global creative excellence to everyone in the industry.”
Highlights of the Global Creative Rankings 2024 are below.
Global Agency Rankings
FCB New York
Rethink Toronto
McCann New York
TBWAMedia Arts Lab Los Angeles
Serviceplan Germany Munich
Dentsu Inc. Tokyo
FCB Chicago
Marcel Paris
VML New York
Ogilvy PR New York, Publicis Conseil Paris (tie)
Independent Agency Rankings
Rethink Toronto
Serviceplan Germany Munich
Wieden+Kennedy Portland
Brand-Side Agency... Read More