adidas
NBA All Star Weekend

How to bring the global basketball community together online and offline with a squad of street artists and the NBA’s finest hoopers.

THE BRIEF

In 2017, the NBA All-Star Weekend rolled into New Orleans. adidas briefed Swift to create an experience that could be enjoyed by both adidas athletes and employees in the Big Easy and basketball fans at home.

THE SOLUTION

Research indicated that fans don’t care who wins the All Star game. They wanted insider access to athletes and events during this 3-day festival.

As the brand for Creators, adidas’ tag line is “Here to Create”. So we did just that and brought together some of the US’ best artists and makers to form the adidas Hoops Collective.

ACTIVATION

For 3 days, a warehouse in New Orleans became a pop-up gallery that celebrated basketball culture.

The adidas Hoops Collective artists created murals, t-shirts, posters, customised sneakers and even a hand-illustrated basketball court. Athletes and influencers crashed the studio to make their own creations.

CONTENT CREATION

Over 100 pieces were created during the weekend, much of it made in reaction to the events happening on the All-Star court.

The whole experience was documented on social, creating a dialogue with fans about All Star Weekend - but more importantly the art being created in the studio.

On the final night, every piece of art was given away to fans via social, ensuring the event lived on long after the All Star circus left New Orleans.

RESULTS

All-Star James Harden was so hyped by a pair of sneakers made by in the studio, he wore them in the All-Star Game. This earned huge social currency - especially when Footlocker voted them the sneaker MVPs.

This contributed to adidas recording the second-highest volume of buzz amongst all brands on social throughout the entire weekend.