The brand recruited local artists Mallrat and Kwame to sample the sounds of football from Matildas’ star striker, Caitlin Foord.
With the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup taking place in Australia for the first time, adidas has partnered with Australia's largest youth publisher, The Brag Media, and leveraged the specialisation of the Brag Studio and Brag Talent teams to support and promote the event.
Inspired by adidas’ three stripes motif, the brand recruited local artists Mallrat and Kwame to sample the sounds of football from Matildas’ star striker, Caitlin Foord, to create ‘Back Of The Net Beats’.
Foord, who has been playing football since she was nine, took to the field to do some of her training drills. Mallrat then sampled the audio and followed its natural rhythms. From there, she chopped it up, slowed it down, created chords and found moments to partner with her voice.
The process resulted in the creation of a brand new song - ‘Forums’ by Mallrat (feat. Kwame), which can be listened to on Rolling Stone Australia.
The Brag Media studio team then shot, directed and produced an accompanying short film that showcased the connection between sport and music.
This culminated in a piece of content that had significant talkability that was amplified across The Brag Media’s broader media cultural network including Rolling Stone Australia, Tone Deaf, Hypebeast, Life Without Andy and The Music Network.
The Brag Media head of production, Brad Arnold, said the company's speciality is helping brands entrench their message within culture, so the idea with this campaign was to natively weave the message of the WWC into mainstream consciousness.
“We wanted to create a song that performed this role, but also lived as its own artform. Listening to the track on its own, you would not easily know the secret behind the song; where the beat is actually captured football sounds and the lyrics are underlined with football metaphors and references," he said.
“The hero film was then created to connect people with that insight, to tell the story of the project, and the meaning and creation behind the song."
The Brag Media GM of partnerships, Jessica Hunter, said this campaign provided an excellent opportunity to create moments of significance in culture and leverage its deep involvement in Australian music.
“Our partnerships team had the opportunity to showcase their talents, while Brag Studio drew upon its extensive experience in creative execution and youth marketing to find an innovative approach that blends two significant aspects of Aussie culture: music and sport," said Hunter.
Credits:
The Brag Media Project Leads:
Partnerships Manager - Marcus Allen
Creative Director - James Di Fabrizio
Head of Production - Brad Arnold
Film Production:
Producer - Brad Arnold
Director - Paul Liddle
Editor - Paul Liddle
DOP - Matt Hopkins
First AC - Michael Leung
Gaffer - Nik Damianakis
Sound Engineer - Jason Wagner
Song Production:
Director - Brad Arnold
Producer - Mallrat
Lyrics and Vocals - Mallrat
Lyrics and Vocals - Kwame
Soccer Sounds - Caitlin Foord
adidas
Rosaria Gordon, Senior Manager - Brand Activation
Essencemediacom
Andrew Hardeman - Client Partner
Jasmin Christie - Client Planning Director
Tejal Mistri - Client Marketplace Director
