On the field of play, adidas outperformed all competitors: adidas outfitted yesterday's two finalists, World Champion Germany and runner-up Argentina, and is also the partner of adidas Golden Ball winner Leo Messi, adidas Golden Boot winner James Rodriguez, adidas Golden Glove winner Manuel Neuer. For the final, adidas supplied the Official Match Ball, brazuca Rio Final, outfitted the referees and ball kids and used the stadium boards to bring home its brand message "all in or nothing".
In terms of sales, adidas will achieve a new record in football of €2 billion this year. adidas will sell more than 8 million jerseys altogether, significantly more than in the year of the 2010 FIFA World Cup (6.5 million).
The Germany jersey is leading the way, with record sales of more than 2 million units, over 30% more than in the previous record year 2006 (1.5 million DFB jerseys). Further bestsellers are the Argentina, Mexico and Colombia jerseys, with sales of more than one million units each. In addition, adidas will sell more than 14 million footballs in the design of the brazuca, the Official Match Ball of the 2014 FIFA World up - one million more balls than in the year of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Over the duration of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, the world's number one football brand has been the most talked-about brand with an increase of 5.8 million followers across all major social media platforms - more than any other sports brand.
From its base in Rio, "Posto adidas" (Posto is the name given to local landmarks along the beaches of Rio de Janeiro), the adidas marketing team posted a combination of planned, anticipated and reactive content to drive its conversation online with football fans. Focussing its campaign on share of voice and reactive moments, results show that adidas had 917,000 mentions of on Twitter - more than three times as much as any other brand during the tournament.
adidas Football had the largest social media community growth (across sports brands) throughout the tournament, showing a 14.5% increase. Share of voice across all key social media platforms in the tournament was also 22 percentage points higher than the nearest sports brand competitor.
brazuca, the Official Match Ball of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, has also been one of the major successes of the tournament. Its @brazuca Twitter handle has been the largest growing account on the platform during the World Cup tournament growing over 2.98 million (603%). @brazuca was also one of the most engaged Twitter handles compared to other brands in the sports category during the tournament, with 530,000 user interactions.
