Das Adidas Video „Break Free“ basiert auf einem deutschen Spielfilm von 2013.

Aktuell geht ein Video viral durch’s Netz, das der Student Eugen Merher als Initiativprojekt für Adidas gemacht hat und das von Adidas abgeleht wurde. Der Aufschrei ist groß. Websites wie Huffington Post, Fasttocreate und Boredpanda klopfen Eugen auf die Schulter und rügen Adidas. 

Zugegeben, das Video ist sehr gut umgesetzt und die Idee ist rührend: ein ehemaliger Marathonläufer träumt in einem beklemmenden Altersheim davon, zum letzten Mal einen Marathon zu laufen. Die Message: Break free.

 

Soweit so gut. Was viele (englischsprachige) Medien nicht wissen (können): die Idee ist fast identisch mit der eines deutschen Spielfilms aus dem Jahre 2013 mit dem Titel „Sein letztes Rennen„. In diesem Film lebt die Hauptperson, gespielt von Dieter Hallervorden, in einem drögen Altersheim und träumt davon, ein letztes Mal den Berlin Marathon mitzulaufen. Die Story und die Stimmung sind fast identisch, vom verständnislosen Personal bis hin zum weiße Trägerhemd. 

 

 

Ist die Idee geklaut? Es scheint fast so. Das Video ist dennoch ein sehr gutes Werbevideo für Adidas. Und außerhalb von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz wird vermutlich niemand den Spielfilm kennen.

 

Will Apple’s control-fetish impact the success of iAd?

OK, it‘ s a bit of  a strong title. Yet – the latest rumour states that Adidas cancelled their $10 Million contract – due to the harsh „quality“ controls by Apple.

The reason according to businessinsider:

Adidas supposedly pulled its $10+ million ad campaign from the iAd program because Apple CEO Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak. According to one industry exec, Adidas decided to cancel its iAds after Apple rejected its creative concept for the third time.

The fact that there are such high standards for quality should generally be regarded as a good thing. Once users acknoledge the fact that iAd adverts are of good quality, acceptance – and hence clickrates – of these ads should increase. Leading to higher revenues for Apple and for the App publishers.

But what good is such a quality control mechanism if you upset all the advertisers? Adidas is apparently not the first company – Chanel already stopped their iAd ambitions, too, according to some sources.

Apple is a company with extremely high standards, which is the reason for their success (heck, I am writing this on a MacBook). But if they want to pull in other companies into their iAd System, they should consider, that they are dealing with clients – not suppliers (or employees). Especially, because there are also some other issues advertisers dislike:

In addition to Apple’s unusual control over the ad creation process, advertisers complain about the lack of control over and visibility into where their ads appear, lack of third-party ad serving tools, and other issues. Apple plans to open up the process once it’s more comfortable with the program, but it appears some advertisers have lost their patience.

Mobile advertising is one of the next (if not current) big things. With many strong competitors and antitrust investigations pending (what’s the latest status on that, by the way?), can Apple really afford to be this drastic?

Allianz Football Viral: Ribery vs Toni

The European Championchip is coming soon and you can see how companies like adidas and nike have started to publish all sorts of clips and virals. Now a company rather unlikely to produce football virals has published this 2.5 minute long video of a battle of Franck Ribéry vs Luca Toni:

You can see a company logo in this clip several times, but it is not too obvious. Only once you see this clip, you get a URL that provides more info about who’s behind it:

Once you visit the website mentioned at the end of this clip, you can see it’s done by Allianz, a German insurance company. It’s nicely done, but I am still surprised to see an insurance company go through all this effort to show their logo. But since it’s very entertaining, I won’t ask any more questions 😉