Hasta La Creative!

After all of the recent Derrick Rose Basketball is Everything TV play, let’s not forget that Adidas’ slim basketball holdings do include the mercurial superstar-child, Dwight Howard. TBWA\Singapore and Dwight teamed for a new international spot way east of America, where 180LA handles domestic duty. The Phillipines is thoroughly obsessed with basketball, and Howard’s Houston Rockets recently traveled to Manila for some preseason play and NBA global brand-building. Adidas wisely used the setting for some brand-building of their own. And as a result, here is the one-and-a-half minute intro video for Signature Shots.

Instead of receiving handwritten autographs from Dwight, fans were able to play him one-on-one as a machine captured their movement on the court and translated that into a unique signature that could be printed onto merchandise. I’m all for the riff on standard sit-and-sign celebrity sessions, even if some of the signatures look like seismograph scribbles, but this spot just feels underwhelming. The clip starts off with some promising B-roll footage of Manila and it’s young hoopsters.

However, all of the vibrant colors and sounds of the city are soon replaced by action shots of machines printing the movement signatures and Dwight playing one-on-one. Rather than wash out all of the sensory details with some techno track, Adidas and TBWA would’ve been wiser to let Manila create its own soundtrack. Watching a printer spit out signed memorabilia is just time wasted. There was a missed opportunity here to create a commercial worthy of Manila’s love for basketball. There will be more opportunities in the future, but Adidas will have to wait. Credits after the jump.

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