Hear no evil

Global – A new campaign by Adidas urges viewers to ignore social media chatter to unlock their full potential.

• Blah Blah Blah features famous football players from Adidas-sponsored teams such as Real Madrid, FC Bayern Munich and Manchester United
• The film highlights examples of criticism aimed at football players and renders them as a series of meaningless ‘blahs’

Created by agency 72andSunny and directed by Somesuch’s Rollo Jackson, the ad depicts a series of famous football players as they tune out negative comments made by newscasters, football commentators and fans on social media. Juventus FC player Paul Pogba, who is the focus of an ongoing transfer saga, opens the film, and suggests that people should not ‘believe everything they read in the papers’.

The film uses a range of visual styles including digital animation, video game-style graphics, live action shots, found footage and anime, and renders the criticism faced by players as a series of floating ‘blahs’ in a comic book-style font.

The ad is an extension of Adidas’ First Never Follows campaign, which is based on the idea that if you ‘listen to the noise, you’ll never create anything special on the pitch. If you want to be first, never follow the blah’.