How Adidas Recovered From Their Boston Marathon Marketing Blunder
A poorly chosen email subject line
In 2017, Adidas blasted out an email to all Boston Marathon finishers. The subject line read:
“Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!”
Uh-oh. Clearly, Adidas had good intentions. They wanted to congratulate everyone for achieving such a feat! But what they didn’t take into account was the events from four years before and how the public would perceive it. During the 2013 Boston Marathon, there was a bombing that killed three people and injured more than 260. Seventeen people lost their limbs.
Two brothers planted two homemade bombs near the finish line of the race, which went off within 14 seconds of each other. One later admitted that they had also had plans to detonate a bomb in Times Square, New York.
There was so much chaos and tragedy. A sporting event that was supposed to be about health and competition was now the subject of a bombing attack. Concerns over security began to mount.
Then, four years down the road, just imagine receiving an email with this subject line. Just imagine you’ve completed the prestigious Boston Marathon, a very historic race that many runners across the world would love to participate in. For some, it’s a lifetime achievement.
You open your email and get congratulated for surviving. Of course, all these memories of the bombing come rushing back. It’s no surprise that the email was met with negative reactions. How did the company fail to make this connection? Who came up with the wording?
Adidas’ blunder became the talk of the town. It spread like fire all over social media and popular news outlets.
Here are some Twitter reactions:
We’ve all sent out messages that we later on regret. But we can just apologize and move on. For a brand as big as Adidas, such an insensitive subject line could only lead to catastrophe. You would think that their marketers would have the expertise and experience to select better word choices.
What Adidas did next was the best and only thing they could do. Following this mistake, Adidas did the right thing. They admitted their mistake and took responsibility. Just three to four hours after the email was sent out, a public apology was issued on their social media accounts. Adidas apologized for its careless mistake and only had good words for the Boston Marathon.
The sportswear giant was swift to respond, preventing matters from escalating. But the damage was done, and it will go down as one of the worst subject lines in email marketing history.
Fast forward a year after the email mess-up and Adidas bounced back even stronger. As the Boston Marathon’s official apparel partner, and to celebrate 30 years of partnership with the Boston Marathon, they came up with a brilliant idea.
Adidas, in partnership with digital agency Grow, came up with the “Here to Create Legend” campaign. Drew Ungvarsky, the CEO of Grow, announced:
“We are thrilled to create a first-of-its-kind experience for Adidas at the Boston Marathon. We wanted to harness the power of 30,000 runners generating data from the very race bibs that sport the Adidas logo and transform the entire race into a creation engine. The result is an epic personal highlight film for every single runner who becomes part of the legend of this incredible event.”
Cameras had been installed in certain spots of the racecourse to capture individual videos. After the event, runners didn’t receive an insensitive email. Instead, they were in for a treat. Delivered within hours after the race ended, all runners received an email where Adidas shared access to all the videos. There were 30,000 runners and 30,000 unique videos.
Check out the promo video below:
3 Tips on Crisis Management
Crisis management is an important skill that companies should have. At any given time, a small issue could snowball into a big one, causing long-lasting damage. It could be anything because you never know how the public will react.
With that in mind, organizations need to have a strategy to handle the crisis. And they need to do it as quickly as possible.
Here are three tips to handle a crisis:
1. Act quickly
During a crisis, it’s crucial to respond as soon as you can. The Boston Marathon email was sent out on Tuesday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon, Adidas had already issued an apology. It took them only a few hours to do so.
The longer you wait, the more damage that might be done. Issue a statement showing that you acknowledge the crisis. But also be sure to check that all your information is accurate.
2. Take responsibility
Mistakes happen and the best way to deal with them is by owning up to it. That’s exactly what Adidas did. In a matter of hours, the sportswear brand issued a sincere apology and praised the Boston Marathon. Although it was probably only one individual or department responsible for the wording, as an organization, it didn’t try to deny it or shift the blame onto others.
3. Be human
During a crisis, we need to keep in mind that people have emotions. That is why the crisis happened in the first place. So when we’re dealing with a crisis, try to express empathy and concern.
In this case, Adidas used very strong words such as “incredibly sorry” and “deeply apologize.” Another focus of the apology was on the runners: “Every year we’re reminded of the hope and resiliency of the running community.”
