To capture the attention of high school athletes while simultaneously pushing an exclusive line of products, sportswear brand Adidas and retailer Champs Sports have created a series of abbreviated TV-like videos on Instagram.
Per the brands, the effort, “AdicolorTV,” is a first-of-its-kind Instagram video series. It was created for Adicolor, a collection of Adidas products available exclusively at Champs in the U.S.
The campaign unites Adidas brand partners like musician Lil Jon and athletes Robert Griffin III, Von Miller, and DeMarco Murray to create what the brands call a “unique blend of sports, style, and music.”
The content is available on Champs’ Instagram page and will include more than 25 15-second episodes released over a six-week period. It launched July 18.
While Champs has 350,000 followers on Instagram, Adidas had not mentioned the effort to its 1.6 million followers as of July 30.
According to a blog post from Champs, the series is “meant to be a tongue-in-cheek sampling of the actual TV landscape.”
Content to date includes a QVC parody and a GIF-y look at touchdown dance moves with 5,500 and 5,400 likes respectively.
Per social media analytics firm Shareablee, the average number of likes and comments per post for AdicolorTV videos in the last 30 days was 5,877 whereas the average total actions for the overall category of U.S. outdoor gear/sporting goods was 2,497.
This indicates AdicolorTV content is significantly outperforming other brands within their category, a Shareablee rep says.
In addition, Shareablee says AdicolorTV is responsible for driving approximately 65 percent of total video actions for Champs’ Instagram account.
“Our strategy this season was to reach the high school athlete on the most engaging social platform, Instagram, through a variety of innovative and colorful content,” said Scott Burton, director of marketing at Champs, in a press release.
And that has clearly not been a bad strategy.
While Vine has inspired some great brand content like GE’s 6-Second Science Fair and Lowe’s Fix in Six, video on Instagram boasts additional time, which is more conducive to live-action content and short clips, says Kristin Kovner, president of marketing strategy consultancy K-Squared Strategies.
“You can tell a full story, or set up a joke and deliver the punchline in 15 seconds, so it’s no wonder that media and entertainment brands have been using the format to best advantage,” she says.
AdicolorTV marks one of the first times a retail brand has created original episodic content tailored to the medium.
“In this way, Instagram Video is more like Snapchat Stories, letting brands tell a longer story through shorter clips,” Kovner says.
Marketers seeking to reach young consumers understand they need to be on Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, but they must tailor their video approach on each network, she says.
“On Instagram, we see the youth market sharing and engaging with more personal types of content [like images and videos] than on Twitter, which remains more of a ‘broadcast’-type environment for newsworthy posts of snack-sized length,” she adds.
Champs is a subsidiary of Foot Locker.
Champs did not respond to requests for comment.
An Adidas rep was not available for comment.