If Adidas is promoting Manchester United, perhaps it doesn’t want to also advertise one of its biggest rivals.
Earlier this year, Adidas won the rights away from Nike to sell branded Man U gear in a massive $1.3 billion deal for 10 years. The rollout has finally started in its online store, beginning with these throwback track jackets and pants.
There’s just one problem.
An eagle-eyed Twitter user noticed something unusual about the pants:
Mess up by Adidas! Retro United tracksuit. No problem about that but shame the guy is wearing retro Chelsea pants! pic.twitter.com/9P5OHSVPEK
— Andrew Yee (@andrewyee) October 12, 2015
The pants are stitched with a Chelsea Football Club logo, an arch competitor of Man U. The “cock-up” is somewhat understandable since Adidas is also Chelsea’s official sponsor, but it’s unlikely a fan of either of those teams will mix and match an outfit like this.
Needless to say, die-hard soccer fans weren’t pleased:
Man U jacket with Chelsea track pants. Fire the stylist. @adidasoriginals pic.twitter.com/K1C6T70i3S
— ebun. (@mrLBF) October 13, 2015
@ManUtd there is something wrong with this marketing https://t.co/WQIaz187Oe #checkthetrousers #mufc #notCFC
— Ken Huang (@kenhuang7) October 8, 2015
Adidas pulled the listing offline and it with the same model wearing matching Man U pants.
More in Marketing
S4 Capital trades billable hours for outputs as AI redraws agency economics
Sir Martin Sorrell’s AI bet: fear billable hours, more output-based deals.
Ad Tech Briefing: Public companies’ first loyalty is to shareholders — why do advertisers give them an easy time?
Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit attendees call foul, claiming IPOs encourage murkiness amid ad tech providers.
Ad veteran Peter Naylor joins Kochava board, and sees opportunity in market flux
Nearly a year after he left Netflix, ad industry veteran Peter Naylor is back as a board member at ad tech business Kochava.