Adidas Senior VP of Global Football Markus Baumann told SBD Global that the company is planning its biggest marketing campaign ever to achieve its goal of breaking €2B ($2.6B) in global football sales in '14. Baumann: "We will launch the biggest brand campaign in 2014, focusing on all channels -- classical brand marketing, point-of-sales solutions and also a very strong push on social-media sites, where the majority of our consumers are present on a regular basis." Adidas, which is an official partner of FIFA and the 2014 World Cup tournament in Brazil, will divide the year-round campaign into different segments to fully capitalize on the global event. Baumann said, "It will be a campaign that will run throughout the year, with different chapters over the course of the year. We want to export the World Cup and the Brazilian feeling from Brazil into the rest of the world because the World Cup is a global platform. We also believe that consumers in Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa want to be part of it. We will make sure to really approach them and get in touch with them through our World Cup campaign and our World Cup activities." However, Baumann was reluctant to get into too much detail. He said, "I don’t want to release too many insights yet in order to keep it a little secret and surprise for our consumers and competition." Lionel Messi, arguably the biggest name in adidas' portfolio of football players, will without a doubt play a big role in the company's campaign. Baumann: "[Lionel Messi] will probably be the icon of the World Cup 2014 together with the Argentinian team. We will use Leo Messi for our product strategy and also our communication strategy in 2014."
