When I saw the battle between the two big sports industry, Nike vs. Adidas on Katherine’s blog, it reminded me the Cola War between Pepsi and Coca Cola. The rivalry between the two soft drink companies is legendary and the brands have been fighting each other for more than a century.

As Nike stole people attention from Adidas with its “Write the future” campaign,  Pepsi “hijacked the World Cup” from Coca Cola sponsoring FIFA. The 2010 ad “Oh Africa” achieved millions of views in no more than 2 weeks after the release. The commercial shows great soccer player from all over the world such as Thierry Henry, Didier Drogba, Kaka, Fernando Torres, Lionel Messi, Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard competing against African Kids for Pepsi.

Coca Cola tried to regain people’s awareness like Adidas did, with a compelling online video in association with their campaigns but it was too late.

The association hinting the World Cup and the timing of the release was considerably important but I believe the “wow factor” was the key of Nike and Pepsi’s success. The two brands were able to impress us with creative stories, which make us wanting to share the video and spread it to people. Adidas and Coca Cola produced also interesting commercial but they lacked of “wow”.

Nike and Pepsi were really successful by applying a smart strategy called “ambush marketing” that completely hindered Adidas and Coca Cola awareness.

I found also an interesting Pepsi commercial. Obviously, The company created this ad to compete against Coca but we can see the indirect battle of the two sports industry: On one side, Manchester United wearing jersey sponsored by Nike and on the other side, Real Madrid sponsored by Adidas.