RUN FOR THE OCEANS | ADIDAS

I worked with creative agency We Are Social to support adidas with the strategic digital rollout of their Run For The Oceans campaign. My role included developing content with a playful, positive, engaging tone to help drive participation in the community running event. I helped drive impactful copy targeting Generation Z to move past apathy to acknowledge that marine plastic pollution is their problem, and most importantly, their solution.

The goal was to develop a content strategy for adidas that showcased how an individual’s actions can help turn them into positive activists and feel part of something bigger than themselves.  Messaging was designed to encourage participation in the Run For The Oceans global movement and incite social media engagement.

MESSAGING HIERARCHY

Utilizing my knowledge of information architecture to develop terminology and taxonomy patterns, I helped establish a messaging hierarchy and facilitate the key language components to include throughout each phase of the social campaign. I cross-functionally collaborated with a team of creative writers and adidas internal marketing partners to ensure clear, cohesive and human-centered language to consistently use across the Run For The Oceans content. I helped ensure all copy laddered up to core adidas brand attitude ‘rebellious optimists’ and brand messaging ‘together, impossible is nothing’.

We established the leading narratives and key language to use to each of the four phases of the communication campaign. The tease phase drove sign-ups and adidas Runtastic app downloads, rallying the world to help end plastic waste together. The educate phase focused on introducing Run For The Oceans event dates and how it works (10 mins of running = the equivalent of 1 plastic bottle cleaned up from beaches and coastal communities). The sustain phase amplified local and global athlete stories to drive hype and awareness. The exist phase celebrated community participation numbers and the total weight of plastic waste cleaned up, demonstrating adidas mindset: together, impossible is nothing.

INSPIRING ATHLETE STORIES

I supported athletes effectively communicate their personal motivations for wanting to protect oceans and express their connections to the Run for the Oceans Campaign. This content was developed for model and sustainability advocate Karlie Kloss, tennis player Dominic Thiem, Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo, soccer player Pedri and track star Nina Schultz. I collaborated with a creative content team to help package the personal stories of athletes, providing a platform to present their genuine connection to sustainability.  Each story presented solutions for how sport can unlock the possibilities for sustainability.

We collected these inspiring athlete stories into videos, carousels and hero stills. Quotes from their conversations were highlighted to showcase an authentic relationship to oceans and reflect the rebellious optimist spirit required to forge a new path for sustainability. We prioritized quotes that included the word ‘together’ to show the possibilities of what we can do as a collective.

CELEBRATING COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

The Run For The Oceans content strategy aimed to celebrate the contribution of running teams from all over the world. We created a toolkit of assets that showcase final plastic bottle scores, reflecting the waste cleaned up from beaches and coastal communities. From a global perspective, we developed a leading video asset that flicked through imagery and final totals from all nations and adidas affiliated run clubs like Tinman Elite. For local markets, running groups were supplied with their final running data to combine with imagery and turn into 2D or 3D assets.