While we’ve all been taking up yoga and tuning into live workouts at home, live sport remains on pause. The Olympics have been postponed, the Wimbledon Championships cancelled and the Premier League are in ongoing talks about finishing the season behind closed doors. A national cultural conversation is on pause, while grassroots clubs leave a hole in players lives.
 
The world of sport will reopen however, and adidas’ latest spot encourages us to be ready when it does. Created by iris, ‘Ready for Sport’ looks ahead to when sport isn’t being done from your living room but rather played on pitches, courts and tracks around the world.
 
Voiced by the New York rapper Miss Nokia, her words carry across a montage of empty grounds and stadiums, professional sporting stars and iconic moments, ending with the words, “we’ll compete again and create again, and when the time comes we will be ready.” It captures the energy of collective sport, from rugby to basketball, dance and even the infamous New Zealand rugby haka.
 
The uplifting work was created using stock imagery and previous campaign footage while Instagram stickers have been designed to encourage people to share what sport they’re looking forward to experiencing when the lockdown lifts.
 
The campaign initially began internally, through adidas employees only, a first for the brand, with nothing spent on paid media and without athlete or asset support. It was then consequently rolled out across adidas channels with athletes supporting the campaign on their own social platforms. A brilliant example of creativity in the midst of constraint.
 
It is an optimistic slot, one that acknowledges the impact of lockdown on sport, whilst simultaneously celebrating the power and unity that it brings to people around the world. It looks forward to what sport will look like when this is all over, getting people excited for what is to come. A welcome, pitch perfect reminder, that we will play again.