Introduction
Promoting sportswear might seem easy – as long as sport exists, there will always be high demand in the given niche. However, Adidas was one of the first companies that decided to appeal to the general audience, thus, opening more opportunities for the companies producing sports clothes.
The given step, however, also opened the door to numerous challenges, which Adidas fights very efficiently in such commercials as the advertisement of T Max 6 shoes.
Description
In their advertisement of T Max 6 shoes, Adidas provides an image of a hall with a range of lockers, two pairs of shoes, the red ones in the foreground and the white ones on the left and on the right side of the red pair. In the distance, a group of people can be seen. In the center of the advertisement, a caption saying “Together we can” runs in what is supposed to remind of a handwritten note.
Analysis
Setting
As it has been stressed above, Adidas clearly puts the stake on both athletic performers and average citizens, which the advertisement displays in a very graphic manner. On the one hand, the setting, with lockers and a long hall, can clearly be defined as a gym at the very least.
Thus, sportsmen are being addressed. However, the silhouettes of the people in the background are so vague that they could be practically anyone, from Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan to any member of the target audience. Therefore, the viewer can easily imagine himself among sport stars and, thus, relate to the advertisement and the product in question.
Messages
No matter how vague the background might be, though, one can spot easily not one, not two, but at least three people walking in a straight line.
A seemingly minor detail at first, on a second thought, the given element of the commercial appears to be the most important part of the advertisement, not only because it affects the audience on a subliminal level, but also because it appeals to people’s necessity to be a part of society, which the catchphrase in the caption reiterates and, thus, reinforces.
For a number of reasons, people walking in line are the kind of a cliché that always renders the heartstrings of the audience in the right way. Perhaps, it is the sense of being a part of a strong team of people who mean business and knowing that there are reliable people ready to support any of their members that affects the audience.
Anyway, the blurred image of a team meaning serious business happens to be one of the strongest aspects of an advertisement, which touches upon people’s need for friends and support. In other words, the advertisement practically screams to the audience, “If you wear our shoes, you will have strong and supportive friends and be a member of a team”; and, quite honestly, very few people can resist such an offer.
Color cast
Finally, the choice of color and its arrangement in the advertisement must be mentioned. It was wise of Adidas to use only one aggressive color in the picture; with the rest of the colors toned down, blood red shoes in the foreground make a statement of their owner’s persistence an success. Another peculiar aspect of the color cast concerns the way in which the palette was arranged in the picture.
With one red shoe in the foreground and the second one in the background, the advertisement offers the audience curious visual rhymes. The impression of symmetry grows even stronger as the viewer notices two similar white shoes on the left and right from the red one.
Finally, the clever use of light also serves its purpose, making the important elements visible and leaving the places that the audience’s imagination should work with in the shadow.
Even though the idea of putting the product, i.e., the shoe, in the limelight might seem dated, in the given commercial, it appears to be quite natural, seeing how the commercial makes the audience focus on what lurks in the shadows even more than on what is in the spotlight.
Audience
One of the many important details about the way Adidas promotes its products is that it never targets a specific audience. True, sportswear is designed to be suitable mostly for the people who take up sports; however, Adidas was the first to push the envelope and ask a question why other people could not wear sporty clothes.
As a result, not only does Adidas appeal to a general audience of no particular social status, their age ranging from five to ninety, but also manages to make the idea of being sporty and trim fashionable.
Summary
Although initially, sportswear was designed for a very particular set of customers, i.e., the people who took up sports, Adidas made a breakthrough by appealing to every single member of the society, therefore, making the idea of taking up sports attractive to everyone. Such popularization of sports is especially obvious in the given advertisement, seeing how it does not show sportsmen explicitly, only dropping hints at a sports setting.
With a “Together We Can” catchphrase thrown into the foreground, the company appeals to people’s feeling of solidarity and togetherness, therefore, creating the premises for being supported by a team of enthusiasts instead of individuals, which makes the company all the more influential.