adidas

NBA All Star Weekend

Uniting the global basketball community with a pop-up art gallery to celebrate hoops culture, created in real-time by artists and some of the NBA’s finest for All Star Weekend 2017.

Role: Creative Direction. Experiential production. Real-time social media management. Hooping.

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.

TELLING STORIES

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.

ON COURT 🤝 OFF COURT

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.

ALL STAR PERFORMANCE

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.

Credits

AGENCY

Swift Agency,
Portland, USA
2017

ROLE

Creative Direction
Experiential production
Social production
Real-time copywriting Hooping

ALL STARS

James Robinson
Cade Wallace
Liam Doherty
Keith Kunis
Ben Sellon
Katie Sellon

James Heredia
Jeff Lawrence
Ed Smith
Jeff Attila
Mark Rasoul

BACK TO THE WORK •