Despite Adidas being official sponsors, Nike stole the World Cup in 2010 with its Write the Future campaign (at least in terms of global brand positioning). The viral marketing sensation racked up over 12,000,000 online hits in one day (Wieden+Kennedy, campaign creators), tripled Facebook fans from one to three million and set the record for most views of a viral video ad in its debut week.
However football savvy folk will remember a similar win for the brand in 1998, when the Brazil squad took to the terminal showing off their silky skills before boarding a flight to France. Though this was before the Facebook generation voted in likes, it certainly got tongues wagging 'offline' (not like that). As for Ronaldo, perhaps the last scene was an unfortunate sign of things to come...
Never let the truth spoil a good story
