Adidas.TV Launches Online Entertainment Network
Adidas.TV this week is set to launch an Internet-based entertainment network.
The network is described as a “global hub” for video content produced by Adidas and its partners, according to EVB, the digital agency that developed the idea and designed the service for Adidas. The site includes channels devoted to sports, as well as an “Originals” channel, which will feature short videos on style. It will initially start with a library of 75 videos featuring such athletes as National Basketball Association’s Dwight Howard and Chauncy Billups.
“People have gone to Adidas for sports-related content forever,” Daniel Stein, CEO of EVB, said. “A lot of this content would have been created anyway, whether through TV commercials or documentaries. This is a centralized way to distribute it all.”
Adidas is using the site to drive commerce through the content. Each piece of video will be linked a specific product. Visitors can click on a banner ad next to the video to learn more about the product.
“The goal is not about driving tons of traffic to a destination site,” Stein said. “The whole site is about selling apparel and selling shoes.”
Users can also send product information to their mobile phones, as well as browse certain content from their mobile devices, Stein said.
Visitors to Adidas.TV will have the ability to share content by sending videos and other content to a blog or add it to Facebook and other social networking sites. Users will also be able to create Adidas.TV widgets to receive content updates.
“It’s all about sharing the content,” Stein added. “The focus is about taking the content to the people. “
The site will be available in 34 countries and in 16 languages. It will first be available to English-speaking countries before following out globally, Stein said.
Adidas.TV, EVB’s largest digital undertaking, took about a year to plan and execute.
The new platform comes on the heels of Anheuser-Busch’s decision last week to sunset its two-year-old site Bud. TV after Web traffic plummeted, and the cost to create content proved to be too much for the firm.
