THE CROWD ADIDAS COULDN’T IGNORE

A crowd holding up its shoes showed adidas something its own marketing department had not yet understood.

Run-DMC already loved adidas before adidas had formally built a relationship with the group. According to adidas’ own corporate history, the company only fully recognized the scale of that connection when an employee attended a Run-DMC concert and saw thousands of fans respond to the group’s relationship with the brand. adidas describes a crowd of roughly 40,000 and the group holding up their shoes during the performance. The moment mattered because it inverted the normal endorsement model. Traditionally, a company selected an athlete or celebrity, supplied the product and then marketed the association. Here, a cultural relationship already existed without corporate direction. The brand arrived after the community had created the meaning. The audience came first. The contract followed.

Brands often misunderstand culture when they try to manufacture it. Sometimes their strongest opportunity is to recognize what people are already doing.

• VASTGELEGD
• TOEGESCHREVEN

DOCUMENTED by adidas / ATTRIBUTED event framing

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