adidas Come Under Fire After Arsenal Kit Launch Is Hijacked by Offensive Twitter Accounts

​Adidas have come in for criticism after their social media campaign, aimed at promoting Arsenal's new home kit for the 2019/20 season, was hijacked and used to promote offensive messaging.

2019/20 marks adidas' first year of their kit deal with the Gunners and their attempts to promote the club's new jersey have backfired.

Adidas launched its #DareToCreate campaign along with the release of the ​Premier League side's new home kit. They encouraged fans to share the tweet, which would automatically create an image of the kit adorned with the Twitter handle of the account in use.

The image of the kit, paired with the message "This is home. Welcome to the squad." was then tweeted out by the official adidas UK account.

However, the promotional campaign was hijacked by users with offensive account names such as @GasAllJewss, @MadelineMcCann and @96wasnotenough, which were subsequently retweeted.

The offensive tweets remained visible on the adidas UK account for several hours before being deleted early on Tuesday morning. 

In response to the events, adidas have responded by saying (via the ​Guardian): "As part of our partnership launch with ​Arsenal we have been made aware of the abuse of a Twitter personalisation mechanic created to allow excited fans to get their name on the back of the new jersey.

"Due to a small minority creating offensive versions of this we have immediately turned off the functionality and the Twitter team will be investigating."