With only a few weeks to go until the London 2012 Olympic Games, Adidas’s controversial new footwear, dubbed “shackle shoe“, inadvertently gained twice as many Twitter mentions as the launch of its Team GB Olympic kit earlier in the year.

According to findings from SoMA, research firm YouGov’s social media audience measurement tool, Adidas’s promotion of shackle-like shoes, which some accused of being evocative of slavery, reached twice as many UK Twitter users as the launch of its sponsored Team GB Olympic kit.

Andy Morris, group director of new products at YouGov, describes the coverage of the contentious shoe: “On 19 June, the day Adidas announced it was cancelling plans to mass produce the shackle-like shoe, the brand reached the newsfeeds of 16 per cent of the UK Twitter population. Just 7 per cent of the mentions were positive, while 28 per cent were neutral and a considerable 65 per cent were negative.”

Twitter coverage of Adidas' shackle shoes

Source: YouGov SoMA / BrandIndex

Morris compares this with reception of the Team GB kit: “Rewind to 22 March, the launch day of Adidas’s Team GB Olympic kit, when the sportswear giant reached 8 per cent of the UK Twitter users. Of those people: 37 per cent received positive messages about the brand, while 54 per cent were neutral and 9 per cent were negative.”

Twitter reception of Team GB kit

Source: YouGov SoMA / BrandIndex

Adidas’s “shackle-shoe” caused mentions of the brand to quadruple between 17 June, the day the story broke, and 18 June. Media coverage reached its peak on 19 June, when mentions for the brand were double that of the day before and nearly three times the volume of the Team GB Olympic kit launch. Popular words monitored on 19 June included: “shackle”, “slavery”, “shoe”, “sneakers”, “cancels”, “Jeremy”, “Scott” and “trainers”.

So the social world was abuzz about the story but how did it impact in the real world?

Morris says that BrandIndex, YouGov’s daily tracker of brand health, saw Adidas’s “buzz” score drop after the “shackle-shoe” story broke on 17 June, from +9.5 to +5.4 by 22 June. He adds, “significantly however, Adidas’s Index score [a composite measure across a range of metrics including: reputation, value, quality and satisfaction] did not fall. Indeed it actually marginally improved following 19 June when the sneakers were removed. This proves the necessity to provide context to social media data. In this case a negative story on social media did carry through to the real world, but it has thus far had no impact on brand perception of Adidas.' 

Adidas buzz score

Source: YouGov SoMA / BrandIndex

Background

YouGov SoMA (Social Media Analysis tool) takes a sample of the social media population from the YouGov panel and tracks what they are seeing on their social media feeds to provide accurate reach figures for social media campaigns and crisis. BrandIndex is a daily measure of brand perception amongst the public. It tracks many brands across several sectors simultaneously.