adidas and Arsenal's This is Home campaign launched in the United Kingdom in July 2019, celebrating North London identity through a hero film directed by Rollo
adidas and Arsenal Launch This is Home to Redefine North London Identity
This is Home is a 2019 United Kingdom football campaign created by Iris for adidas and Arsenal, built around the idea that London identity is chosen rather than inherited, and released to mark the debut of the club's new home kit at the start of a landmark five-year sponsorship partnership.
The campaign launched on 1 July 2019, the first day of adidas's new partnership with Arsenal, with the hero film going live alongside the 2019/20 home kit reveal. It marked a clean break from Arsenal's previous kit supplier relationship and introduced the adidas brand into one of English football's most storied clubs with a deliberately cultural, rather than purely product-led, statement. The partnership itself, as reported by shots.net, was valued at approximately £300 million over five years, underscoring the commercial weight behind the creative launch.
Distributed across adidas, Arsenal, player, and celebrity channels beginning 3 July 2019, the campaign extended beyond digital film into physical space. A London Underground out-of-home takeover placed the campaign at Highbury and Islington, Camden, and King's Cross stations — locations chosen to anchor the message of North London identity in the lived geography of the city. This is Home operates as both a kit launch and a brand manifesto, positioning adidas and Arsenal not merely as sports and fitness partners but as participants in the cultural fabric of one of the United Kingdom's most recognisable urban communities. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 69/100.
This is Home is built on a single, transferable insight: belonging to London is an act of adoption, not an accident of birth. The campaign positions Arsenal's globally diverse squad and fanbase not as outsiders who arrived in North London, but as people who chose it — and in choosing it, became it. This reframes the conventional football kit launch, which typically leads on performance or heritage, in favour of a cultural and emotional proposition rooted in place.
The strategic timing was deliberate. adidas and Arsenal announced their partnership in October 2018, as reported by shots.net, and the first day of the agreement — 1 July 2019 — was chosen as the moment to establish the brand relationship in public. Rather than a soft introduction, the campaign opened with a bold cultural statement designed to generate immediate conversation in the United Kingdom. As reported by Creative Review, the film became a top trending topic on Twitter at launch, suggesting the strategy of leading with identity over product succeeded in cutting through a crowded sports and fitness media environment.
In the United Kingdom, where football culture sits at the intersection of community, national identity, and global commerce, the campaign's emphasis on London as an open, inclusive city carried particular resonance in mid-2019. The competitive landscape for premium sportswear kit partnerships in English football is intense, with major brands competing closely for club associations that confer both cultural credibility and commercial reach. By grounding the campaign in a specifically London narrative rather than a generic global football story, adidas differentiated the Arsenal partnership from the outset.
Rollo Jackson directs the This is Home hero film through production company Somesuch. The film was created by Iris Worldwide London and brings together a cast that includes actor Idris Elba, Arsenal legend Ian Wright, current players, and supporters drawn from the club's fanbase.
On screen, the film deploys a striking creative device: international players and fans are shown lip-syncing in dubbed North London accents, visually and aurally performing their belonging to the city regardless of where they were born. As described by The Drum, the film explores London inclusivity through this mechanism, articulating the idea that people become Londoners rather than being born as such. Ian Wright appears as a connective figure between the club's past and its present, while Idris Elba's involvement extends the film's reach beyond football audiences into broader popular culture. The effect is a portrait of North London as a community defined by shared allegiance rather than shared origin.
The production deploys the lip-sync technique not as a novelty but as a structural argument: the accent, the most intimate marker of local identity, is shown as something that can be genuinely adopted. This sits in direct service of the campaign's strategic proposition. The London Underground out-of-home executions at Highbury and Islington, Camden, and King's Cross complemented the film by placing the campaign's visual language inside the daily movement of the city the film celebrates. The integration of paid media placement with the film's geographic storytelling gives the campaign coherence across formats.
No verified performance data beyond audience reach figures for This is Home is publicly available from adidas or Iris in terms of sales uplift, conversion, or brand tracking outcomes. What is documented points to substantial organic reach at the moment of launch in the United Kingdom.
According to Creative Review, the film accumulated more than 15 million video views following its release. Creative Review also reports that This is Home became a top trending topic on Twitter on the day of launch, indicating that the campaign generated immediate and significant cultural conversation beyond its paid distribution. These figures reflect the combined power of the adidas, Arsenal, player, and celebrity channel ecosystem used for distribution from 3 July 2019.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several hallmarks of effective sports and fitness brand launches. The choice to anchor the launch on a specific cultural idea — belonging and London identity — rather than on kit specifications gave media and audiences a narrative to engage with and share. The casting of Idris Elba and Ian Wright provided two distinct points of entry: mainstream celebrity culture and deep football heritage. The London Underground takeover at stations directly connected to Arsenal's geographic heartland ensured physical presence in the United Kingdom market matched the digital footprint. Together, these elements suggest a campaign designed for earned amplification as much as paid reach, a structural choice that the view count and trending performance appear to validate.
This is Home is a 2019 United Kingdom football campaign created by Iris for adidas and Arsenal. It launched on 1 July 2019 to mark the start of a five-year kit partnership, using a hero film directed by Rollo Jackson to celebrate North London identity and the idea that belonging to London is chosen, not inherited.
Rollo Jackson directed the This is Home hero film through production company Somesuch. Jackson brought together Idris Elba, Arsenal legend Ian Wright, current players, and supporters to deliver the campaign's central argument about London identity through a distinctive lip-sync device using dubbed North London accents.
According to Creative Review, This is Home accumulated more than 15 million video views and became a top trending topic on Twitter on its launch day of 1 July 2019. The campaign distributed across adidas, Arsenal, player, and celebrity channels from 3 July 2019, amplifying reach across the United Kingdom and beyond.
As reported by shots.net, the adidas and Arsenal partnership was valued at approximately £300 million over five years. The agreement was announced in October 2018 and began on 1 July 2019, with This is Home serving as the campaign that introduced the partnership to the United Kingdom public.
The film used lip-syncing with dubbed North London accents to show international players and fans performing their belonging to London. As described by The Drum, this device articulated the campaign's core idea that people become Londoners by choice, making the accent — the most personal marker of local identity — a symbol of adoption rather than origin.
The campaign included a London Underground out-of-home takeover at Highbury and Islington, Camden, and King's Cross stations. These locations were chosen to anchor the campaign's North London identity message within the lived geography of the city, complementing the digital hero film with physical presence across key United Kingdom transit hubs.
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