Adidas Break Free has been viewed nearly 8 million times between December 15 and is #2 on YouTube’s trending ranking. The ad was not commissioned by Adidas, before or after it was made (and sent to the sports brand).

The film was made a spec commercial by student filmmaker, Eugen Merher, DoP, Mortimer von Hochberg and young composer, Alexander Wolf David.

Merher and Von Hochberg have been studying to become commercial directors at Filmacademy Baden-Wuerttemberg since 2014.

Like Edeka’s Christmas 2015 ad, which is also German, Break Free is the story of an elderly man who yearns for something more than what he has ended up with. The styles and moods of the ads are similar.

The Edeka ad has achieved nearly 55 million views.

Break Free wanders into the realm of Hollywood hyperbole with its depiction of a nursing home that behaves like a jail.

Edeka’s story of an old man faking his death to get his family to spend Christmas with him, stays on the right side of believability.

Clearly, German agency Jung von Matt had a strategy and brief to work to. Merher didn’t, but he and his mates have managed to produce a story built around the Adidas brand that’s beautifully told, magnificently filmed and powerfully underscored by its music. Both ads are compelling. Break Free all the more so because it is so strikingly different in so many ways to the plethora of sports brand ads on TVs, YouTube and social media throughout the world.