Sometimes misunderstandings can cause quite a bit of trouble. Electronic Arts and Adidas are probably thinking that right now. Something went wrong while trying to promote influencer advertising for FIFA 19.
FIFA 19 is not only generally popular, but even professional football players often have a preference for the football simulation from Electronic Arts. You often find clips of stars like BVB player Marco Reus online while they are playing FIFA. It is well known that EA frequently utilizes this connection between FIFA 19 and real football for advertising purposes.
What deals are happening behind the scenes rarely comes to light. In this case, a copy of FIFA 19 was sent to the professional player of VfB Stuttgart, Borna Sosa, before the release. However, no one was supposed to find out.
Sosa is supposed to promote FIFA 19 – receives it as a gift
What happened? Recently, the defender Sosa received a copy of the newly released FIFA 19 by mail. Sosa received the edition before the “official release date” because he is an adidas player.
In the package, there was a letter from Adidas asking him to upload a photo of himself playing FIFA 19 on his social channels.
Additionally, it was explicitly requested that he should not publicly mention where the gift came from. Sosa himself is a big FIFA fan and was so pleased that he directly published his mail in a story on Instagram.
Contrary to EA and Adidas’s request in the letter, he not only mentioned that the gift is part of an advertising deal: “Thank you @adidas.” The accompanying letter is almost completely readable as well.
It is possible that he did not understand the letter correctly due to a lack of German language skills. The native Croat only switched to Stuttgart this summer.
What is the problem here? Sosa is allowed to independently promote FIFA 19. However, the letter and the request to keep the deal secret make the whole thing legally complicated; it could potentially be considered covert advertising.
Whether and to whom consequences might arise remains to be seen. Either way, the deal has likely gone wrong for all parties involved.
Interesting: Almost the exact same thing happened to Activision with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. But that involved a basketball player.
What do you think of the story?
