Sometimes the creativity of aficionados and brands fans is even better than the professional work. German Film Academy student shot a video for Adidas, which scored more than 5 million views, 2.6 thousands of comments on YouTube and the admission of marketers worldwide.

Student of the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy Eugen Merher shot amateur advertising sneakers of Adidas, which has become a hit on the Internet.

The movie under the name «Adidas — Break Free» tells the story of a former marathon runner of advanced age, who lives in a nursing home. In the story, a man lost the taste of life long ago and the only thing that inspires him is the ability to run as a young man.

Once he puts on his old Adidas sneakers and runs along the corridors of the house. The staff does not allow him to break out of the nursing home, but he tries again and again and doesn’t lose hope.

According to the words of Eugene, he was inspired by a distant relative to the creation of the video. «He was an old man with a very young spirit; he walked two kilometres every day to bring flowers to his wife. He was always up to date with news and loved to watch basketball. I combined his image with the idea that running or doing sports helps to feel free — I’ve always thought about it».

By the way, a similar idea was the basis of the German film of Kilian Riedhof His Last Race (Sein letztes Rennen, 2013). The film tells the story of an old runner who decides to organize a marathon in a nursing home. However, the author of the amateur ad discovered the existence of the film in the middle of the work on the video and decided not to watch it, to avoid sudden copying.

It took almost six months to create the advertising for the student and his team. The filming lasted for two and a half days, and it took a couple of weeks to process the material. After the students sent the video to Adidas via e-mail, but the company refused to support their work and reported that they constantly get many similar requests, but prefer to work with the audited agencies.

Eugene is not even sure that the representatives of the company watched the movie, and therefore the guy just published his video on YouTube on December 15, 2016. Since then, video has got nearly five million views.

In comments the users claim that Adidas should not only verbally thank, but also pay the author for viral advertising «at least a couple of million». Some Internet users believe that the company intentionally did not pay students for their work, because they knew that the movie will become viral and get the popularity of the network in any case. And the professional marketers are admired of how subtly and touchingly the guy was able to get the idea across and to advertise the brand.