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Matthew Burns:
Okay, back with Dylan Bernier. How’s it going, my friend?

Dylan Bernier:
Doing well, doing well.

Matthew Burns:
Last week we talked about Nike and I said we were going to talk about Adidas this time. You really have a feeling about Adidas and I want to say, I think we should just play the ad.

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Okay. Before we do that, guys, if you haven’t watched Nike, we’re going to be doing some back and forth because it’s a direct competitor, same timeframe that they were playing these ads and they really tried to go for the same kind of human being. So they’re targeting the same, their messaging is not identical, but similar. Their feelings that they were trying to evoke were similar. Go watch it. Come back. Let’s play the ad. Let’s do that.

Commentator: *background thoughts*
Speaker 1: Okay. Hold on. It’s only rivalry. 
Commentator: Can Anthony Edwards live up to the hype…
Speaker 1 : It’s only noise. It’s only hard work. It’s only a game, a block, a serve. It’s only a number. It’s only breaking the laws of gravity. It’s only getting back up and up and up. It’s only a jump.

Matthew Burns:
The fact that they chose “Pressure”.

Dylan Bernier:
It’s a great song,

Matthew Burns:
Right? Well, the song, but even the mental state of what is it like when you’re in the middle of the action that you want to be successful of? That last Nike ad was all about success, choosing success, making success for your friend. And this one was like, holy crap, how am I going to be successful? I’m a soccer player and there’s a whole team running at me. I’m one individual. That pressure was so well done.

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah, they did a really good job. We have to give them their flowers for that first 30 to 40 seconds. Incredible setup. Really, really good. Brilliant. What they did in that first section of the ad is they really made you feel the pressure. There was a bunch of techniques that they used to do that. One was the audio track with Freddie Mercury singing pressure.

Matthew Burns:
And the remix of it was brilliant.

Dylan Bernier:
The sound design that they did with the ups and downs and the hits and stuff, loved it all. That was really well done. The audio design masterfully done and the way that they used it to build and release tension throughout that section, and then right at the end, they pull you out of it. Everything up until that point is fantastic.

There are some visual things that they did from a filmmaking standpoint that are really, really smart. And I noticed three shots in specific that did a fantastic job of illustrating this feeling of pressure that comes with being an athlete. So the first shot that stood out to me was there was just a shot of that young Asian boy just walking, soccer player, just walking. But it’s not objectively, it’s just a kid walking, but it’s shot top down, so it makes him feel small.

Matthew Burns:
Brilliant, yes.

Dylan Bernier:
I do shoot sports and one thing you want to do to make your athletes feel larger than life is shoot up at them which makes them feel big. It’s a hero shot.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah.

Dylan Bernier:
Shooting down at them makes them feel small, insignificant. So the way that they use that style of shooting to make you feel the pressure to make you feel…

Matthew Burns:
I want to say when you say that you shoot sports, like yes, you do the dodge ball Toronto. Taking dodge ball and making it super athletic. You think of a dodge ball as a playground sport, but you also shoot major sports.

Dylan Bernier:
Yep. Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. You’ve done professional NHL, NBA sports. So guys, when we say, I’ve got a guy that knows… when I’m bringing Dylan on and he produces all of our stuff, like, thank you, man. So anyway, keep going. I had to hype you up because dude, you’re incredible. Okay, go ahead.

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah. Thank you. Shooting those high level sports has taught me a lot about how to portray athletes in a, let’s say, a favorable way, a way that makes ’em feel powerful, that they take up space and that they are masters of what they do, but knowing those techniques also, if you just flip them, it gives you the inverse, right? So that a hero shot. The opposite is just like a top down makes you feel small.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, exactly.

Dylan Bernier:
Right. So same like line of thinking, just the other side of the technique, basically. There was another shot that I think you will love. The idea of where it comes from is it’s actually a shot through somebody’s legs from the ground looking up at somebody, and it almost feels like a David and Goliath type shot.

Matthew Burns:
Yes.

Dylan Bernier:
Right? You see the kid, but you see the whole kid, the whole from foot to head through this person’s legs. So it gives the perspective that whoever’s standing in front of them is massive, taller, larger than life, right?

Matthew Burns:
Yes, yes.

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah. It feels like, how am I going to beat this person? How am I going to score on this person? Blah, blah, blah. That feeling of pressure was really well illustrated in that one shot. Just that one still.

Matthew Burns:
Yes. Brilliant. By the way, that’s a huge one for me, especially when I’ve got… Again, I coach baseball kids, both intermediate and then right up into some high performing children. I have kids who are 12 years old, and you think about growth spurts at 12 years old, I have a 12-year-old who’s this tall, and I have a 12-year-old that you can’t even see the hand, that way towers above. And I got to let this 12-year-old know they can defeat that person. So that feeling of being small is incredible. So I love that. Absolutely.

Dylan Bernier:
And then the last shot that really stood out to me, I mean obviously that whole first sequence was amazing, but these three shots in specific blew me away. The last one was, it was a shot of a girl playing soccer, a young girl playing soccer, and she’s just standing there alone in an open, there’s people in the back, but the way they shot it feels isolating.

Matthew Burns:
Well, people that you’re talking about, they were way in the back.

Dylan Bernier:
Oh, way back there.

Matthew Burns:
Obviously very on purpose. They paired that with then the entire team running at her alone against the whole mob. And that’s what I said at the beginning. It was my favorite scene. And so one I remember most about really, truly feeling pressure. I’m not a soccer person, but damn did I feel that in that moment. I was like, oh, this poor girl, what is she going to do? Right? But now let’s talk. What happens? Where do we go from there? You’ve got this amazing setup. Adidas. Adidas, awesome job, great setup, holy crap, pressure. How do we overcome it? And then the transformation moment, what happens?

Dylan Bernier:
Wet fart.

Matthew Burns:
Big raspberry, right? It just died. Like all of that feeling instantly went into the universe. It’s just gone, poof. Gone. You went, oh my God, all this pressure. And then they cut into telling me how to feel. They made me feel pressure. They didn’t have to tell me. They didn’t say, Hey, you feel pressure when you’re in the middle of a game and you feel like you’re the only one in the field. No, you made me feel the pressure.

And all of a sudden you broke down this nonverbal ad and made it a verbal ad, and you changed the message. Adidas, you spent a lot of money on this ad, and when they compare it to the Nike ad, which was communication right from the beginning, and they stayed all the way through with one message, you guys went, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. It’s only what? Now you have to describe every single possible “it’s only.”

Which means you now have changed from one message, pressure. Not how do I deal with pressure. Not how to feel about how to deal with pressure — to now all of a sudden you’re telling me how to feel. You’re telling me how to feel? Well, that’s not how it works. I mean, I coach a lot of kids. That’s not how this works. They need to discover that they don’t have to worry about the pressure. Nope. Do it again. Nope. Do it again. Nope. Do it again. That’s how I get them through it. You guys went, no, no, no. Don’t worry about it. It’s only a jump. It’s only going higher. It’s only going up. Right?

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah.

Matthew Burns:
It’s not just only, you know how much work it takes to do that. It means got a muscle. You got to defeat the pressure.

Dylan Bernier:
The verbiage of “it’s only” to me, it feels like you’re talking down to yourself.

Matthew Burns:
It diminishes.

Dylan Bernier:
It’s a diminisher.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, dude, brilliant. And listen, you discovered that. How did they end the ad? And we’re going to talk a little bit more about the failure, but how did they end this ad?

Dylan Bernier:
They ended this ad with the slogan. You got this.

Matthew Burns:
So they didn’t start with that. They didn’t start with, you got this. If they’d have said, you got this! Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. You still got this. Okay, wait a second. I might be in the transformational moment is supposed to allow you to feel the transformation. And you lost me as soon as that transformation happened.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a really good ad. What I think they did smart in the transformation was that they also went from all amateur sports, all amateur athletes, and they started to bring in some big sports. I think that Nike killed it big by blending amateur and professional sports at the beginning and inherited all the way through versus what Adidas did, which is they did transform.

But I like the fact that they showed you, Hey, listen, if you just, unfortunately, if you can overcome the pressure by saying it’s only pressure, then even say it’s only pressure. Even that message, it’s only pressure, would’ve been better than, it’s only this. It’s only a jump at the end, right?

Dylan Bernier:
It’s only a game. It’s only a…

Matthew Burns:
You’re diminishing it. You’ve taken away all of the extra. So anyway, yeah, emotionally, you can tell this went super flat. It went flat. It went from brilliant to flat.

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah. That diminishing feeling, it immediately sucks the life out of the ad in the way I look at it. And I have a question for you. We think that these are targeted at the same people, right? But who do you think that Adidas targeted this ad at?

Matthew Burns:
They targeted this to girls and amateur sports. That’s really where my brain feels they targeted it to.

Dylan Bernier:
I was curious because I was like, who is this for? It’s for Gen Z across the board. So yeah, this was their attempt to reach Gen Z. As someone who is Gen Z, lemme tell you why I hate the second part of this ad.

Matthew Burns:
Go.

Dylan Bernier:
It feels like a participation ribbon.

Matthew Burns:
Awesome. Yes. Absolutely.

Dylan Bernier:
The Nike commercial that we watched makes me want to aspire to be a champion. This ad feels like a pat on the back and a participation ribbon in my hand.

Matthew Burns:
Get out there and move people.

Dylan Bernier:
You got this. It just feels so corny.

Matthew Burns:
Yes. Well, and here’s the thing. Do regular Joes who are just participating, are they buying top quality equipment? Are they buying whatever gets them on the field? Adidas, you’re supposed to be motivating people to want to be brilliant, and maybe you’re not. Listen, if you were going for a participation award, then you set it up at the beginning wrong too. You could have completely done, Hey, get out there and move and be a part of something bigger than yourself.

That would be different. Being bigger than yourself is still what happens in the Nike ad. Be a part of something bigger than yourself. Because when they open up the screen and they show you the big stands, and we’ve got dunking happening and all that amazingness, it’s still about me being the champion I need to be. So I’m the best human for my team and for my fans, but I have to be the best human. I’m only in competition with myself. This one… blah.

Dylan Bernier:
Yeah, and I mean, you brought up the celebrity, the high ranking athlete celebrities. I think that’s something that they actually missed on in this one. And I’ll explain why. Who is Adidas’s number one athlete?

Matthew Burns:
I don’t know. That’s scary.

Dylan Bernier:
And you wouldn’t know because he was in the commercial for less than one second. Lionel Messi, one of the greatest soccer players of all time in the ad for less than one second. Why even include him if you’re not going to actually use him to push the story forward?

Matthew Burns:
Okay, brilliant. So could you imagine if they showed Lionel Messi under pressure?

Dylan Bernier:
Exactly.

Matthew Burns:
Could you imagine what happens when they showed Lionel Messi under pressure and really make you think, holy shit, this guy worries about the other team. Sure he does. Why do you think he trained so hard? Why do you think he busts his butt? Why do you think he goes out every day and kills himself to be the best absolute goddamn soccer player he could ever be? Because every day is pressure. Every single day is pressure. Holy crap, that is brilliant.

Adidas, the entire second half of it. Scrap it. Here’s what you would do. Stay with one message. Start with pressure. Pressure is brilliant. The song choice is brilliant. All the visuals,  you’ve heard us, we loved it. It was crazy good. Stay with pressure and show how they defeat pressure. Talk about I eat pressure for breakfast and show how that same human being can do what they need to do because they’ve mustered the courage and the entire ad could have been done without dialogue.

I’m a writer. I write dialogue for a living, and I would’ve written this entire ad with just direction and visual cut and music. Guys, we loved the beginning of this. Adidas, just call us up. We’d love to talk about it. I don’t care. Yell at us in the comments. Tell us why. We’d love to know why some of the decisions we made. Again, we’re talking without knowing. We talked about last time, first mental image, last mental limit. We start with pressure. We end with pressure. Yeah. Dylan, what would you recommend to Adidas on this ad?

Dylan Bernier:
Honestly, I agree with what you’re saying. It’s like, well, I got to admit. I think the idea of doing an ad with no voiceover for this is fantastic. It’s a show don’t tell kind of situation. They did a fantastic job at showing and not telling in the first 35 seconds, 40 seconds. The whole black and white section was fantastic. And I actually liked the transition into color.

Yes. I like the transition into color to separate the sections to show the progression and because almost as if the black and white is like you’re in your head, and then the color is like, this is reality. You can do it. You can beat it. You know what I mean? So there’s so much that is right about this ad, and it doesn’t actually need that much to be changed. It just needs to be more aligned.

Matthew Burns:
But that’s exactly it. And listen, you could have had “you got this.” Here’s the thing. If you had stayed the whole message, the whole commercial, with just pressure, and then your tagline is your tagline, listen, Nike did “just do it.” The whole ad was, am I bad? And then it still ended with “just do it” fine. End with “you got this.” Because if you’re under pressure and you have a coach that says, listen, I know you can do it. That’s what they need. Sometimes I just need that little bit “I know you can do it.” So you got this because you showed them how to release the pressure valve. That would’ve been brilliant.

You guys could have competed head on in the same space. Better use of your celebrities. Go headlong into one message all the way through. And take out the dialogue. The dialogue killed it. You’re telling me how to feel, not making me feel it. I don’t want to beat up on them anymore. We love your stuff, man. You guys have a great brand. This is one thing out of all the amazing things you’ve done, but really we just wanted to highlight between the two.

Let’s face it, you’re not going out of business because of this ad. Anyway, listen, Dylan, thank you, man. These were two great episodes. I’m really happy that we got you in front of the camera, the behind the camera guy.

Dylan Bernier:
Thank you for having me. It was a real pleasure to talk about these ads, and I’m going to go find some more that maybe we can talk about.

Matthew Burns:
Yes. Okay guys, and this is your cue. Go find some ads, talk to us. If you guys have something, put it in the comments. We will definitely be taking a look at it. If it’s something that we can really bite our teeth into, we’ll do it. Thanks so much, buddy. I appreciate it. It was fun. Appreciate you. Ciao.

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