adidas
The A.I. Fanalyst
How to turn a legend into the world’s first A.I. Football Analyst (and your new best mate) for the 2023 Champions League Final.
THE BRIEF
adidas wanted to reconnect with football fans for the 2023 Champions League Final and assert their deep football credibility with the competition.
But for European fans, the Champions League Final is on a Saturday night in June. If it’s sunny outside, why stay inside to watch a football match on TV?
THE SOLUTION
Even if they’re living life, 96% of fans use a second screen to connect with the game, especially via WhatsApp.
We asked ourselves: What if adidas could use A.I. to keep thousands of fans updated on the final, just like a real mate would?
And so, adidas gave everyone a new mate: Champions League winner, Alessandro Del Piero.
On the night of the Champions League final, Del Piero would become the A.I. Fanalyst, the most knowledgable football fan to ever slide into your WhatsApp.
THE WARMUP
Our engineers worked tirelessly to train A.I. Del Piero on 20+ years of Champions League history, ensuring he could accurately talk to 100,000 fans in just 10 seconds.
On the morning of the final between Manchester City & Inter Milan, fans could add him to their WhatsApp groups. The premise was simple: you go out and have fun, Del Piero will keep you updated on the game.
Paid media and adidas’s social team drove interest, and several members of the adidas family entered the chat.
KICK OFF
A.I. Del Piero was a fast learner, but couldn’t respond in real-time to incidents in the game.
So I became Del Piero for the final, writing WhatsApp messages and sharing content in real-time using a purpose-built CMS. This allowed us to blend text, video and voice messages like a typical WhatsApp user to keep the experience authentic.
In addition to pre-recorded videos from adidas athletes, we also shared content from inside the stadium to bring fans even closer to the Champions League Final.
FINAL SCORE
This was adidas’ first venture into generative A.I. and was definitely an experiment. But it was still a success: over 15,000 fans were chatting with Del Piero at its peak.
For Experience.Monks, the biggest win was proving that generative A.I. can enhance the fan experience, not just for football but other events too: The Super Bowl? The season finale of The Bear? Watch this space.
Credits
AGENCY
Experience.Monks
Amsterdam, NL
2023
ROLE
Creative Direction
Concepting (Social, Digital)
Copywriting (Social, Reactive)
Social Media Mgmt.
Generative AI
THE CHAAAMPIONS
Margherita Giottoli
Mattia Falciani
Marine Rabier
Pascal Rotteveel
Pablo Vio
Dirk Van Ginkel
Alexandra Hook
Antoine Tannous
Tim Wellenberg
Florian Root
Ben Wager
Martina Salvaterra
BACK TO THE WORK •
BACK TO THE WORK •