No Preds, No Goals

We put the world’s most iconic soccer manager in a balaclava, wreaked havoc on adidas’ social channels, crashed a major Premier League fixture and left our audience on the hook about the culprit’s identity for hours – all in the name of reigniting interest in the most hyped cleat for two decades. By the time Jose Mourinho was unmasked to a delighted audience with a memorable hero film and some killer portraiture, the results made for a landmark moment in social-first storytelling: 23 million impressions, 1.5 million likes and a search spike that surpassed the product’s initial launch weeks earlier. All within 24 hours. The adidas Predator is a legendary franchise in soccer. This new version, 30 years on from the first, would supposedly transform its wearers into goalscoring superheroes. But we all know every great story needs a villain. In our world, someone wanted to stop them: a humorous, masked anti-hero aiming for total control of the cleats. No Preds, No Goals. It was an intricate idea that followed a tease/launch/reveal/reward narrative to sustain interest from the start, underpinned by unhinged community management throughout as we teased, responded – and finally, rewarded lucky users with a global Predator raffle. It was a carefully planned web of platforms, eye-catching assets and mini activations that began with a fake Instagram Stories Q&A in partnership with Argentine ace Paulo Dybala, came to life with a ‘hijacking’ from our villain and set off a chain of multi-platform mischief. IG Stories kept our story together and diverted our audience where we wanted them – our experimental TikTok Live from Troll HQ, for example, or Rick Roll-esque YouTube meme. Towards reveal, we took over big screens and LED boards at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium with a special broadcast from the villain, and extended the footage to social through a creative collaboration with Ray-Ban Meta. Then came the finale: a video Mourinho unmasking in his hideaway, backed up by striking stills that racked up engagements, were shared far and wide in a PR boom and remain this campaign’s legacy. Attention seized. Predators impossible to ignore.