• Adweek, Tuesday, March 6, 2007 12 PM

Twenty-one international sports stars--including David Beckham, the English soccer player, Gilbert Arenas, the U.S. basketball player, and Jonah Lomu, the New Zealand rugby player--discuss how they overcame adversity in their lives in a new Adidas global TV campaign. Film locales include Shanghai, Madrid and Sao Paulo.

The ads show the athletes drawing themselves in pivotal situations. In Beckham's case, he shows how he got death threats after being ejected from a World Cup game in 1998. His voiceover talks about how it took scoring a goal against Greece in 2002 for all the sportswriters to stand up and cheer for him again. The simple figures seen in all the spots are actually drawn by the athletes.

In addition to TV, there will be outdoor and print in sports-related magazines. Online, viewers will be able to see all the spots, 15 documentaries, a long-form film on the making of the commercials and behind-the-scenes footage.

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