adidas opened its new store in Nisantasi Istanbul in late March 2017 and wanted to engage potential Originals customers to enjoy the opening party (and come visit the store) by broadcasting a 360 degree live video from the opening party.

A specific emphasis was placed on attracting locals as Nisantasi is one of the poshest parts of Istanbul. However, adidas faced major issues in reaching this target audience as conventional advertising methods could not sufficiently satisfy their needs. Furthermore, in attempting a bold new marketing approach, traditional channels degraded their story. This clearly had a negative effect on the marketing, sales and local management teams, but it also affected the adidas organization as a whole in terms of new investment and risk-taking in expansion. 

The solution Blesh recommended was to equip the new adidas Originals Store  with beacons to identify interested visitors passing by, assigning each a tag. Then, on the day of the grand opening, adidas would retarget these visitors through push notification inviting them to watch the live broadcast of the opening party. This gave adidas the ability to identify those potential customers nearby, and then to contextually engage with, not advertise to, them.

Broadcasting a live event such as a grand opening with the help of beacons was a first in Turkey, and adidas decided that the proximity solutions of Blesh was a great match.

In collaboration with Isobar (Dentsu Aegis Network – Turkey) and adidas, implementation of proximity solution proposed by Blesh started with the integration of BleshSDK into many of the most popular media and infotainment apps in Turkey. This took no more than one hour per each integration and ensured above satisfactory reach for the campaign. Next, Blesh placed more than 25 beacons in the store (front door, door wings, and inside the store) two weeks before the opening to tag visitors passing and stopping by.

Isobar and Blesh spent a few days deciding on the best locations to maximize reach as well as contextual relevance; the actual beacon installation took only a day. Tagged visitors were retargeted on the day of the opening, and were sent push notifications inviting them to watch the live broadcast of the party.

In less than 8 hours, we reached 1.281.000 unique users online and 275.000 people visited the adidas Originals store opening through our mobile banners.