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Adidas “destroying” homes using Google Earth

June 23, 2010

A few weeks back, Adidas launched a creative advertising campaign to promote a collaboration between Adidas as LucasFilm, based on the popular Star Wars series of movies. Using StreetView and Google Earth imagery, combined with some IP address geolocation, the death star “blasts” your house with a giant Adidas logo.
Here is my neighborhood at the end of the ad:

adidas.jpg

You can try it yourself here.
While this was a creative campaign, they didn’t quite think it all the way through. According to a story on Fast Company, they caused quite a ruckus in Japan:

As it turns out, the geo-detection system in Japan traces many IP addresses back to a large central server–a server that was located right next to the emperor of Japan’s palace. Barbour’s Death Star app had spent the night blasting away at the palace–a promo trick totally lost in translation. Soon, Adidas’s customer service center was inundated with calls from confused Japanese citizens.

Oops.
The execution of it somewhat reminds me of a promotion that Porsche did earlier this year where you could “test drive” a car using Google Maps and StreetView. They drove the car through an auto-generated ad that featured snippets of the route that you asked it to take.
What other creative promotions have you seen that use Google Earth, Google Maps or Street View?

About Mickey Mellen

Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.

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PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

Comments

  1. WLKPman says

    June 24, 2010 at 5:38 am

    Google released Suttgart (Germany) in 3d.
    http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv161/wlkpman/Stuttgart.jpg?t=1277371945
    The coverage of textured buildings in Rotterdam has been expanded considerably.
    http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv161/wlkpman/Rotterdam.jpg?t=1277371941

  2. topcadouri says

    November 7, 2012 at 7:11 am

    Just anoter way of advertising . Nike will do the same , you will see .



PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.

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