Foot Locker Ad Sees Life in Slo-mo

At a time when TiVo and other digital video recorders are regarded as a threat to the TV commercials they enable viewers to skip, Foot Locker has applied the technology to extend the life of one of theirs. In its own sort of sneak play, the athletic shoe retailer embedded a hidden frame in its 30-second Super Bowl spot, “Autograph,” featuring Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Garnett, that can be seen by recording it and then viewing it at a slower speed.

Doing so reveals the URL of a Web site, Youfoundkg.com, whose identity Foot Locker is attempting to keep (an unlikely) secret from all but its VIP loyalty-program customers — customers it invited via e-mail to tape the spot and learn the address of the site where they could win a grand prize that would otherwise cost them about $3,000: namely, a 30-pair collection of Adidas NBA superstar shoes, one from each of the league’s teams, including Garnett’s model for the Timberwolves.

Also on offer through the online sweepstakes are 15 “first prizes” of $100 Foot Locker gift cards, and one pair of Garnett’s Timberwolves shoes autographed by him. The latter recalls the quirky commercial, which shows Garnett autographing the new Adidas of a man hanging out at the mall with his friend, whose forehead is signed by the NBA forward. Overcoming the initial shock of seeing his squeaky-clean new shoe imprinted by the athlete, the shopper cries: “My shoe. Oh no, not my shoe! Oh no, my shoe? Not my shoe. It’s my shoe.”

The idea behind the ad is to drive home the theme embodied by Foot Locker’s current ad signature, “Love Thy Sneaker,” noted Stacy Cunningham, vice president of marketing at Foot Locker Inc. U.S. The campaign will roll out this month in print ads, and in March, in-store displays will feature the “Love Thy Sneaker” logotype. The online sweepstakes will end Saturday and winners will be chosen on or around March 14.

“We were able to tell the story we wanted to tell — Foot Locker is a store for people who are passionate about sneakers — and it ended up on the Web afterwards,” Cunningham said of postings that include the video clips of “Autograph” on You Tube, which brought at least 219,389 views as of Wednesday, and an independent video, “kg spills the secret.” The kg video, posted by Checkityall on Jan. 26, opened with an all-type frame that says, “Yo! My friend was on the crew of Kevin Garnett’s new Foot Locker commercial.” After some behind-the-scenes views of Garnett on the set, more type tells: “They didn’t know I was recording, which sucks for them, because I got something sweet.”