“There Will be Haters”.

Since January, Adidas has been trying to sell soccer shoes with that.

Has any advertising slogan (that lasted more than a week) been worse? More objectionable?

Has any slogan more overtly appealed to our baser instincts?

If you want to toss your lunch, watch the official Adidas youtube video.

And if you want to hurl again, read the sycophantic comments. The positive ones all get “attaboys” from Adidas flacks tasked with stroking their fans. Or distributors. (They apparently believe some kids are so feeble-minded that positive comments will convince them to buy shoes for something like $200 a pair.)

I think sensible people should approach any advertizing from shoe companies from the departure point that “shoe companies are evil”. Adidas, Nike, the lot.

Charging vast amounts of money for shoes that will wear out or be considered yesterday’s news in a matter of months. And getting that money, often, from kids who really ought to be spending it on something other than shiny soccer shoes.

Now, they want to sell soccer shoes based on the contemptible and moronic “hater” meme.

“Hater” for the past decade has been applied to anyone who disagrees with you. Even mildly. About anything.

If you are not wild about a band, an athlete, a shoe, to say so is to become a “hater”.

The “hater” bar is about one inch off the ground. So low that you can trip the hater threshold by getting out of bed in the morning. If you hold an opinion, on anything, you are a hater — or so it goes.

But, as always, the world is chock-full of silly and immature people who parrot the “haters” line and find it compelling. To call anyone and everyone a hater is (in the fantasy) to shush them eternally. When, of course, that is impossible.

Adidas makes buckets of money off their shoes, and they have the audacity to embrace “There Will Be Haters”, as if they are among those “unfairly” criticized? Adidas against the world? Adidas just trying to make their way, scraping by on their gumption?

The video is vile. It encapsulates all the “me against the world” tripe that has invaded sports over the past 20 years.

Note, too, that the guy doing the voice-over has a very downmarket English accent. This ad is not aimed at the middle class. It is aimed at people who already divide the world into three parts — “me, my friends, everyone else”.

It’s also just poppycock. We hate Karim Benzema because he “gets all the goals”?

When he scores more than his teammate, Christiano Ronaldo, get back to us. Then we’ll let you know how we feel about him.

James Rodriguez is hated because he “gets all the girls”?

Is someone keeping track out there? Again, is he ahead of Ronaldo? Is he ahead of John Terry?

And people hate Luis Suarez? Well, yes, they do, because he’s a biter. Can’t get much lower than that.

I feel a bit badly for Gareth Bale and Rodriguez, who to my knowledge are not particularly vile humans. But part of the pound of flesh shoe companies get in exchange for the big checks is finding yourself stuck in a commercial as disgusting and depressingly awful as this one.

And, last month, Lionel Messi was coerced into joining the Adidas trope. It is so depressing, I refuse to look.

There Will be Haters … of that ad campaign?

You bet. Sign me up.