Adidas ads are outperforming Nike ads on TV, research shows

Sometimes, even Nike just can’t do it.

So far this year, the sportswear brand is being outperformed by competitor Adidas when it comes to national TV ads, according to data from measurement company EDO. While Nike has run more spots than Adidas and spent roughly four times the amount, Adidas is seeing higher engagement per dollar.

Going for gold: Adidas’s ads have outperformed Nike’s on TV by 23%, according EDO. That means Adidas has seen more engagement per dollar spent, according to Laura Grover, EDO’s SVP and head of client solutions. For this research, EDO defined engagement as online searches for the brand that occurred in the minutes after their ads were seen.

• Adidas aired 488 national TV ads in the first half of 2024, per EDO, while Nike aired about 1,100.
• Though Nike took up more airtime, Grover said Adidas has been allocating a larger share of its ad spend toward live sports in particular—85% to Nike’s 65%—which could explain why Adidas is seeing higher engagement.

“We see time and time again that live sports is a fantastic environment to be airing,” she told Marketing Brew. “In general, people are more engaged, and more engaged with ads, in live sports…With that concentrated buy in live sports, Adidas is really driving up their per-impression impact, or engagement rate.”

Ballers: Both Nike and Adidas have been scoring in women’s basketball, but again, Adidas outperformed Nike on that front, EDO found.

• Adidas’s ads featuring women’s basketball players outperformed Nike’s women’s basketball ads by 25% so far this year, according to EDO.
• About three-quarters (73%) of Adidas’s overall estimated TV ad spend this year has gone toward women’s basketball spots, Grover said, compared to 8% from Nike.
• Adidas aired 376 women’s basketball-focused ads in the first half of the year.
• Nike aired 356 in that time.

Despite being outperformed by Adidas, Nike’s women’s basketball ads are still shining against its other campaigns:

• Nike women’s basketball ads have outperformed its new “Winning Isn’t For Everyone” campaign by 42%, and its “That’s Mamba” campaign by 140%, per EDO.
• Nike’s WNBA campaign, which includes ads spotlighting Sabrina Ionescu and A’ja Wilson, is its best-performing campaign of the year.

Just for kicks: Soccer is working even better than basketball for Adidas. Viewers were 22% more likely to engage with Adidas’s soccer spots than with its women’s basketball ads, according to EDO data:

• Adidas ads that aired on Fox and FS1 during the UEFA European Championship outperformed Adidas’ average for the first half of the year by 71%, EDO found.
• During the Copa America championship, Adidas saw 49% stronger engagement than average, Grover said. Ads in the earlier rounds of that tournament were 25% stronger.

“Similar to women’'s basketball, I feel like there’s just been a groundswell around women’s soccer, and soccer in general, in the US, so [those ads have] done really well,” Grover said.

Olympic gold: Nike’s “Winning Isn’t For Everyone” campaign, narrated by Willem Dafoe, has generated mixed reviews within the ad industry, but ultimately won the USA Today Olympics Ad Meter.

The campaign includes 10 different creatives featuring different athletes, some of which have performed better than others. A 90-second version with multiple athletes and a 30-second spot starring wrestler and MMA fighter Zion Clark are the only two that have beaten Nike’s year-to-date performance benchmark since the campaign debuted last month, according to EDO.