Adidas' Comic 'NBA Swingman' Body Double Campaign

As the new hoops season starts the NBA’s uniform and apparel supplier Adidas is rolling out a new humorous campaign, ‘NBA Swingman’, to promote its revamped jersey design.

To celebrate the tip-off of the 2014/15 season, the German sportswear giant gathered its elite basketball ambassadors and their swingman body doubles and simply let them play around.

Launched on 28 October, the multi-platform effort is anchored by the five documentary-style comic TV commercials.

The endorsers front and centre of the campaign are Dwight Howard (Houston Rockets), Andrew Wiggins (Minnesota Timberwolves), Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers), Kenneth Faried (Denver Nuggets) and Joakim Noah (Chicago Bulls>) and each has his own spot.

The films, which were created in-house, feature each of the stars in various challenging situations in which their ‘swingman’ body-doubles take over.

Thus, in the Dwight Howard spot, the 6′ 11″ Rockets centre is paired with his 5′ 4″ body double (actor Kevin Hart) who dunks and dribbles (kind of) in his role as ‘the short guy behind the big guy’.

The voice-over explains:

‘Get the new NBA Swingman jerseys, because there is a little Swingman in all of us.’

Other spots include the Andrew Wiggins version which even manages to reference the biggest sports story of the summer (LeBron James’ move to Cleveland helped drive Wiggins own move to Minnesota in exchange for Kevin Love).

The ads also come paired with behind-the-scenes versions on NBA and team platforms and channels.

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/wiggins-adidas-behind-the-scenes

The spots will all air on the league’s national broadcast partners – ABC, ESPN, TNT and NBA TV – as well as running on its regional sports networks.

The NBA is also airing international versions of the spots in key markets.

In support of the core TV work, the Swingman campaign includes executions and content across point-of-sale, digital and (as ever with basketball) the key social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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Adidas claims that the new season’s ‘swingman’ uniforms were created with a similar concept in mind – bringing fans closer to the game than ever before (whatever that actually means) – with an updated design featuring premium materials and an improved fit.

‘Each season we look for new ways to entertain fans and showcase our latest gear,’ says adidas global basketball general manager Chris Grancio.

‘The new Swingman jerseys are more similar to on-court authentic jerseys than ever before, and the TV spots celebrate that in a fun way.’

The adidas NBA Swingman jerseys are available at NBAStore.com, the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue in New York and via team retailers.

Links

Adidas Basketball Website

http://www.adidas.com/us/basketball

Adidas Basketball Twitter

https://twitter.com/adidasHoops

Adidas Basketball Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adidasBasketball

NBA Website

http://www.NBA.com