Dwight Howard's stream of videos, Twitter tweets and Flickr photos for the 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend.

NBA pro Dwight Howard, center for the Orlando Magic, is a popular guy. Aside from being dubbed Superman based on his spectacular performance at the 2008 All-Star Slam Dunk Contest, to say nothing of his jaunty superhero duds, this winter Howard gained the distinction of being the most-voted for player in NBA history after over three million fans voted for him to be a part of the 2009 All-Star team.

As a way to thank fans for their overwhelming support, NBA sponsor adidas, 180LA and 180/Riot (the agency's new in-house digital arm, see Pg. 34) enabled Howard to share, in real time, his 2009 All-Star Weekend experiences via a mobile phone, which all fed to www.adidasbasketball.com. The campaign was launched with a :60 spot, "Manchild of the East", directed by Paul Hunter of PrettyBird and released on YouTube with a two-day site takeover.

During the course of the weekend, visitors to the adidas site were treated to Howard's steady stream of un-coached Twitter tweets, Flickr photos and YouTube videos of practice, late-night antics and his stint coaching the All-Star Sophomore team. That 6' 11" Howard is charismatic and a bit of a prankster certainly helps: choice video clips include the big man giving a diminutive stadium staffer a "low five", and delivering spot-on impersonations of LL Cool J and the Prince of Zamunda, Eddie Murphy's character in Coming to America.

"This is all about Dwight Howard giving back to the fans who got him there," says 180LA ECD William Gelner. "Instead of watching one colossal ad about him, fans got a weekend-long experience with him."

Aside from delivering on the brief to leverage Howard's relationship with his fans, the project also helped 180's goal to create constant communication between the brand and consumers for the whole year, says 180 category director Peter Bassett.

"What was important for adidas was that we bring content that you can't find anywhere else," adds 180 operations director Pierre Wendling. "They didn't want NBA footage... the point was to see what Dwight was living through this weekend."

To execute the plan, a control center was set up in a room near the arena, which included an edit bay, the client, someone from adidas legal to clear all the footage captured by Howard's own hand-held camera or by the small crew that was following him, a videographer, the creatives and tech support. Howard's mobile communications, such as photos and tweets, were posted almost immediately following a quick once-over by legal, while video was edited as soon as it came in and then posted to YouTube. The stream of communication was also translated in near real time into eight languages and was distributed worldwide. Around 80 pieces of content were produced over three days.

Final stats were not in as of press time but Bassett and Wendling say the feedback has been positive. As was the experience, if a little intense at times.

"I won't say producing a commercial is easy, but when you have something scripted you know what to expect. Here you just doing don't know what to expect," says Pierre. "We were capturing, editing, compressing, uploading night and day. If you want to create reactive content you have to be reactive yourselves. It was a great challenge."

Adidas basketball http://www.adidasbasketball.com
180LA http://www.180la.com