Adidas is back with a huge new marketing push for the holidays. It's time to bust old the old classic original designs and pump up the Frankie Valli remix jams. Well done, good stuff.

You may not realize this, but the guy who made all your favorite dark, edgy movies (Fight Club, Se7en, Alien³, The Game, Panic Room and Zodiac) has been dabbling in commercials for quite some time. 

It's David Fincher, and in light of his brilliant new Nike commercial featuring Troy Polamalu and LaDainian Tomlinson (video below), we've decided to take a look back at some of Fincher's great sports commercial work from the past.

1.) In 1993, Fincher put together this sports montage spot which features John Lennon's music and the soon-to-be-international-superstar-Olympian Michael Johnson:

2.) In 2002 Fincher went across the aisle and directed this commercial for Nike's biggest competitor, adidas, featuring a cool mechanical-legged basketball shoe test machine:

3.) Fincher is back to Nike in 2003 with these next two spots. The first of which is a CGI football spot with Michael Vick and Terrell Owens:

The Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship last night after destroying the Lakers in Game 6, but during an awkward on-court post-game interview, Kevin Garnett supposedly screwed over his main sponsor.

When asked how he felt after winning, Garnett responded by saying, "Man, I'm so hyped right now. Anything is possible. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!".

While I was watching it, I realized this quote would be perceived as an incredible moment. Garnett, after being a great player on a losing team for years, came to Boston and got his first championship. Now he's sweating and crying on the court, getting hugs from former Celtic legends, and pouring emotion into the reporter's microphone.

But not everyone is regarding this as a genuine sports success moment. Some are calling it a disastrous marketing blooper.

Garnett is sponsored by adidas, which has been running an ad campaign featuring the slogan 'Impossible is Nothing' for months. Darren Rovell, CNBC's sports business reporter, believes that when Garnett 'incorrectly' exclaimed the adidas slogan, it was a huge missed opportunity for the brand.

Rovell attempts to explain how Adidas got hurt in the celebration:

And then I thought, wait, did he just say, "Anything is possible?" That's not adidas' slogan. Their slogan is "Impossible Is Nothing."

Continue Reading...