In its first year as the official authentic jersey of the NHL, adidas needed to show up big to win over a fickle fan base at the famed Stadium Series featuring the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitols. They needed to break through with a new jersey—the Adizero—complete with a new design philosophy and styling different from the past that was ready for the future.

Inspired by the lightweight design approach of the Adizero jersey, we created a multi-faceted interactive campaign. We needed to unveil the two limited edition Stadium Series jerseys, promote the game, and ignite a rivalry between the two die hard fanbases. The Unlock Speed experience kicked off with the release of a dystopian futuristic short film which followed two seekers searching for, and ultimately finding, the limited edition jerseys. This jersey reveal came with it a challenge to unlock a password protected website, cracking the code by answering a series of Tweeted trivia questions tailored to each team’s fanbase.

The video ended with instructions to visit UNLOCKSPEED.COM, a temporary website that was password protected. The site drove fans to Twitter where they were met with clues from adidas Hockey detailing how to unlock the website and potentially, a trip the Stadium Series game. Using the hashtag #UnlockSpeed, clues were revealed over the course of four days and engaged fans in a digital scavenger hunt for the code.

With the help of both teams’ social channels, over 1,300 fans visited the site, while 266 successfully cracked the code to UnlockSpeed.com. 54% of fans registering opted in to join the adidas Creators Club, and the site experienced an unheard of 0% bounce rate once gaining access. From there, four lucky fans (two from Toronto and two from DC) won a trip to the Stadium Series game. The winners were selected, confirmed and transported from their respective cities – all within one week – to attend the game in Annapolis, MD. Once there, the fans were greeted by an on-site activation hosted by adidas, creating an experience they won’t soon forget.

CONTRIBUTIONS

ART DIRECTION

WRITING

DESIGN

STRATEGY

WARDROBE STYLING

AGENCY

LATITUDE