Inside Facebook

Adidas is celebrating its upcoming Star Wars originals line with a new Facebook Connect integration that also uses Google Earth. The application pulls in your profile image and location, then sends the Death Star to Earth to deliver… a branded message from Adidas.

Once you’ve logged in through Facebook, your profile information is integrated into a brief film featuring Darth Vader and the Death Star, which targets your location to deliver an Adidas-branded laser blast. The integration is similar to those we’ve seen from brands like AT&T and Blackberry, Doritos, ABC and the Discovery Channel, using images and personal information from your Facebook profile directly in the video, but this application also goes one step further. Using Google Earth, the laser blast from the Death Star actually targets your general area (assuming your location and address are included in your profile).

The Google Earth integration is what makes this application somewhat unique, but its execution is a little sloppy. In several attempts to send the laser blast to my and my friends’ locations, the end result was never really on target. This part is neat, but could have been executed better; as several comments on Mashable pointed out, Verizon currently has a similar app that uses Google Street View to “Drop A Droid” directly in front of your home.

Where the application does succeed is in its simplicity and fun factor, which should translate into a lot of both Adidas and certainly Star Wars fans plugging in their information and the information of their friends, giving the brand a lot of data for future promotions and email blasts. Of course there are also links to the actual product line, which features Adidas classics with a Star Wars twist.