70 years of adidas

CHALLENGE: How to celebrate a key milestone in the history of the adidas brand, in an engaging and memorable way for employees globally?

CORE SKILLS: 

  • Creative direction 

  • Content production 

  • Employee engagement

  • Employee branding

2019 marked the 70th anniversary of the adidas brand. The occasion offered the opportunity to launch a year-long communication campaign around the topic of workplace culture, which culminated in a big birthday party on the adidas campus. The celebration coincided with the opening of the futuristic looking Arena building on campus. 

My task was the development and implementation of the visual branding for the overall campaign. Key elements were: 

  • A celebration of the origin and DNA of the company: making the adidas founder Adi Dassler the central piece, and representing the legacy with the Originals blue in the color concept.

  • A celebration of the future of the brand: represented by collage elements of the new Arena building, and the yellow in the color concept taken from the bright walkways between the new buildings on the adidas campus.

  • Hand-painted brushstrokes as a notion for the creativity celebrated at the workplace. 

employee activation

The overall campaign featured a strong internal activation component, as my goal was to pay homage to the backbone of the company, its everyday heroes, the employees:

  • A surprise poster campaign kicked off, with the HQ as well as adidas offices around the globe decorated with a collage of pictures and portraits paired with insider facts of our employees, products, new buildings and brand partners. 

  • Only half of the poster spots were filled - as the remaining images were submitted by employees globally. For that I designed and developed a “portrait collage” tool, allowing them to design their own 70 years of adidas visuals digitally. 

  • Hundreds of images were shared on the adidas intranet and ultimately were printed and added to the physical space, filling those spaces that had previously been left empty. 


editorial

The campaign was a prime example of how to engage and empower humans through creativity. It built on the authenticity of the employees and their passion for adidas. 

Finally, all tools I created were used across the company’s external corporate communication channels, for example the corporate blog GamePlan A. For a feature story about workplace culture I came up with hand-painted headlines, photography, graphics, the sourcing and selection of employee-generated content and special media formats such as a 360° click-through gallery.