Adidas Splashes Chelsea Players In Blue Paint For Promotion Of Club's '13-14 Kit

Adidas and Chelsea "are the latest to break with tradition" with the launch of a new ad campaign "to promote the London side’s new kit, without ever showing it," according to Sebastian Joseph of MARKETING WEEK. The "It’s Blue, What Else Matters" campaign promotes the club's '13-14 home kit "before seeing it." It launched Saturday with a video starring nine members of the Premier League team, including Juan Mata, Fernando Torres and David Luiz "performing football tricks while painted in blue." Additionally, aspects from the video were used "in experiential activity around the club’s Stamford Bridge stadium" last weekend to target fans during its match against Sunderland. Activity did not feature the new shirt. Adidas planned "to tease fans with content on Twitter and Facebook leading up to its reveal" April 18. Adidas "will then switch focus to retail and print promotions to further promote the kit" (MARKETING WEEK, 4/6).

FEELING BLUE: In London, Steve Nolan reported the campaign is "based on the idea that the club is not just a team but something much more emotive than that." An adidas spokesperson said: ''The campaign was created based on the insight that Chelsea can clearly own blue as a colour. Not only do they sing about it, but they are the only club in the English Premier League that call themselves The Blues." The players who took part in the 90-second film "spent more than two hours on set to create the campaign." Goalkeeper Petr Cech said, "I can say that being painted in blue shows how blue I can be" (DAILY MAIL, 4/5). The USA TODAY's Mike Foss wrote a piece about the promotion in the Game On! blog under the header "Chelsea's new uniform promotion is really weird." Foss wrote, "Rather than show the design, adidas dumped blue paint over the most notable players" (USA TODAY, 4/5).