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Hello and welcome. You're listening to Marketing Matters on the Wharton Podcast
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Network, our weekly podcast where we analyze the latest in advertising, marketing, customer behavior, and new
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product launches. I'm Barbara Khan, the Patty and JH Baker Professor of Marketing, and I'm joined by my co-host,
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Americus Reed, the Whitney M. Young Jr. Professor of Marketing and the brand identity theorist. Hello, Americus.
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>> Hi, Barbara. Okay. So, I was pondering this and of course what we do at the
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Wharton School often is to think about the important case studies of iconic brands that can teach us about the
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wisdom of staying relevant over time. And I got to tell you, I was recently giving a co a talk, a keynote, and I
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wore these shoes. I'll show them to you briefly. >> Oh, nice. >> And I got to tell you, I got all kinds
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of compliments. So, I need to know. And by the way, I'm gonna put a quote out
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there to sort of kick us off here. There's a difference between timeless and timeliness. Okay.
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>> And so what have you got if I want to learn about this venerable company? What
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have you got for me today, Barbara Khan? >> So you're talking about the famous
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company Adidas, although a lot of people here say Adidas, but I believe it's
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pronounced rightly Adidas. And that is a brand that has been around for a while and is never more relevant today than it
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was in the past. And in order to talk about all of that, we have with us the vice president of marketing for Adidas
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Originals, Basketball, and Partnerships, Annie Barrett. Hello, Annie. Welcome to
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our show. Hello. Hello, Barbara and Americas. Thank you for having me. And Americus, I honest also brought a shoe
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beside me. So now I feel like Let's Let's book in this, ladies and gentlemen. Let's book in.
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>> I didn't know we were having a shoe party. I have my own upstairs. >> I love I love this brand and I am so
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excited, Annie, to learn everything. I We're going to just We're going to
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absorb your knowledge. So, we are super excited, as Barbara was saying. >> Uh yeah, I do wish I had my uh my shoe
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with me, but I do have one upstairs. But anyway, what we wanted to talk about, Annie, is your new campaign, Superstar,
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the original. Can you tell us like the motivation for the campaign and then we can get into it? I have to say I watched
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that spot. I don't know. America's abused. >> Awesome. If you haven't seen this spot,
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you have to go on YouTube immediately and see it. >> But why don't you give us the background
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for it? >> Oh, I'd love to. And honestly, you both are just making me smile ear to ear and
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you know how you're speaking about it as well because that's how how I feel about
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the campaign genuinely. So yeah, I'd love to talk you through the what and the why. And actually for us as Adidas
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originals, you know, the last couple of years we've been on a bit of a journey
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overall to really kind of set out and define who we are authentically and make sure we show up authentically even
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internally first to make sure when we go out into the world, we're being authentic to our consumers. So, we've
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been on a bit of a journey and with that we've really lent into the fact that we
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are a sport brand and we've lent in and been proud that we were born for sport
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and then for originals we've been super proud around how we've made our way into
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many subcultures all around the the world. And so when we set out with this campaign for for Superstar, although
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Superstar is a shoe, we really wanted to lean into it. It's it's so much more
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than than just a shoe. And we wanted to portray and and relive the journey from sport to culture because it's actually a
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shoe that was made for basketball truly to be played on the basketball courts and it was made in in the late 60s and
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and it was worn on basketball on NBA players all throughout the 70s and it's
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and it's actually at the time was was a crazy innovation and new innovation.
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basketball players at the time were they were wearing canvas shoes and Adidas came in America America's knows I feel
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like maybe he's a basketball fan you know was wearing canvas >> yes >> um and actually Adidas came in and and
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actually looked at it and said we need to make something that works best for the athlete um and that's where we were
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the first uh company to make a leather a leather performance shoe um but there's
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so much more to it and that's why I had the shoe because within the design and
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when when people look at the shoe of the Superstar, there's so much to it like
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the the shell toe here, the shell toe at the top, it's it's to protect the the
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toes, right? And and and the sole was to grip on the core and then the leather was to be durable. So, it was so
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innovative of its time and it was so precious, but actually the journey it then took is what we really love at Adas
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Originals. Um, you know, through the through the 80s it was adopted in hip-hop and music with Run DMC,
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iconic. Uh, in the '9s it took its way into grunge and into >> Let me just stop you on all of that and
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let's like unpack. >> I know my mind is exploding because this is so incredible.
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>> I I want to like just and America's weigh in whenever you want. Interrupt me
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galore. It's fine. But I'm trying to understand this. You started out as a
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basketball shoe and you were showing us the shoe to show us why it was so good on the basketball court, but then you
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started talking about the cultural influence it had. So, how how did that happen? Was it organic? Did you did did
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it happen because you thought to make you know your company thought to push it that way? How exactly did that move from
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one to the next world? >> Yeah, it's it's a beautiful question because it was organic. It truly was
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organic. you know, run DMC literally pointed to this shoe and, you know, they would say in their own words, growing up
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in New York, it was a durable shoe. It was it was a durable shoe that you could clean super easy. So, they actually
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picked it up and wore it um without, you know, us interfering in that way. And that was what was so beautiful about
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that kind of shift from sport directly into hip-hop. and and then from that point it took many different worlds of
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its own. So yeah, super cool. >> So when you I I don't know if you were
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at the company then or you just know the history, but so when you get that lucky
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break, that move, is there something the company does to capitalize on it or just
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from a marketing point of view, that sounds great that it was adopted organically, but I would imagine you'd
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want to build on that also and and certainly in this updated campaign, you want to build on all of that. So, can
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you talk a little bit about the marketing implications of of that move from one world to the next?
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>> For sure. And honestly, I think for us, it really did define collaborations
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uh and and and moving our sport product into culture and and defining a a true partnership. And we did sign a deal with
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Run DMC, but kind of after the fact and after the fact they won it. Um, so that really was a uh a pioneering step for us
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to kind of, you know, listen and see that they naturally adopted us, but then have a conversation and say, "Well, how
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else do we want to work together?" >> Right. >> And that then, yeah, for sure became the
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start of true collaborations and long-term partnerships and contracts and deals and
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>> and now for from where we sit today, it's such a vital part of of what we do.
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We're always trying to invite people into our brand, you know, to to collaborate, to share, to give us
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inspiration, and and our ambition is keep pushing us forward, help keep us forward as a brand. So, yeah, super
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super cool, super interesting. And I wasn't around then. Um, but I I I I love
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geeking out on it all. Um, and I I could keep going, but I'll I'll I'll stop at
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that point. >> Yeah. America, I'm sure you're aching to say something. So, I'm just going to set
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up my next one, but I'm going to let you to do it. So, I I love the fact that you
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weren't around that you're looking at it and now you have to have a modern uptake
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on it, and I'm curious about that, but I know Americas is just biting his tongue
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hoping to say something. So, let me uh give him the opportunity. >> Yeah, I this is fantastic. I do want you
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to address that point, Annie, that uh that Barbara was making. Uh, but I also want to I point out to you Barbara the
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how impressive this was because it it cannot be overstated the coolness of the earlier partnerships way back in the day
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as Annie was talking about because if you if you really studied the hip-hop community you understood that there at
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that moment at least there was this sort of push back against sort of corporations and there was a purity
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around the art form and people were very protective of the art. So there was no way back in those early days, Barbara,
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that companies could just come in and connect inauthentically. It wasn't going
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to happen because the artists would say, "I'm basically selling out. I'm
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basically not pure. I'm not I'm not This is not real." And so that's what for me
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is like super duper duper impressive about this. But I love your point. I want to connect those two dots, Andy.
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Barbara's point about stepping in with fresh eyes to be able to look at this,
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but also pulling forward the cultural iconicness and the authenticity of those brand moments that were early on in
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Adidas DNA. How those things are coming together to sort of set the stage for what you're doing now.
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>> Yeah, for sure. And and honestly, that's where, you know, our inspiration was
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pulled. And then when we were looking at this campaign, it was for sure, you know, we don't want to tell a history
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story, but how do we give a nod and point to the cues of its journey from sport into the different subcultures
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that I me mentioned? And that's where we kind of thought around, okay, what's the
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message we want to put out here? And it was two parts. The first one was we do want to show we truly believe we have
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the most iconic sneaker in the industry and it is the original icon and without just pointing to the shoe we want to
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have a lineup and a cast of partners who really represent being an original icon
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in their field and so that then led to the cross-pollination of the cast that led with people from basketball from
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skate in hiphop and in music. So, we kind of reinterpreted the journey it's been on into a more contemporary
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vision and creative and story without just pushing the direct product story uh in everyone's faces. So, yeah.
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>> So, how did you choose the people you chose? Like, did you choose them? Did
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they choose you? It it was a a collaboration and we have a really incredible sports marketing
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team and culture marketing team that we we name internally who look after all of
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our our partners and you know we work together to say look here's the vision
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uh here's the type of personality that we want to pull through you know an icon
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someone who walks in a room and has that aura and and you know authentically connects to our brand and and that is
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what then led to you know the likes of Missy Elliot an absolute dawn, a pioneer,
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uh, authentic connections to the brand, which was super important, too. >> You know, with Jenny from Blackpink,
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she's been a partner of ours for a good few years now. Anthony Edwards, >> you know, such a dawn right now in in
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basketball and such a personality. Again, he definitely has that aura of being an icon and so on so forth. So it
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kind of then started to craft from the story, the the feeling we wanted to portray and then who who can help us
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tell that story. And then that of course led to us uh pointing to the ultimate dawn of Mr. Samuel L. Jackson.
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>> Yeah. I mean that's Yes. Yes. Yes. >> I was wondering when you're going to
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mention him. He's kind of a star in the >> He's a big star. He is a big star. Yes.
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I I want to just uh you know I got the memo that Adidas might be looking for an icon in the identity theorist marketing
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professor in Philadelphia space. So I just want to put this out there. Uh Annie, I'm available. I'm available for
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uh for a conversation. >> I'll be calling you. I will be calling. >> In all seriousness though, I I I want to
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return back quickly to something you said at the earlier part of the interview that just stuck with me in my
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mind and you said building the brand internally. Building the brand internally. Can you speak on this
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because I feel like this is um a not often appreciated aspect of creating the brand strategy because the idea being
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that if the people in the building and the four walls of the building aren't
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buying into the DNA, it's going to be much more difficult to have that authenticity
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ripple out to the marketplace. So, can you talk about how Adidas creates that strong deep sort of internalized culture
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with the company within the company? >> For sure. and and I I've been at the
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brand 15 years, so and and I genuinely love it. I love the three stripes. I love the feeling it it brings to you.
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And and actually it was for me as well as with with my team, we I would say two and a half years ago as I kind of
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stepped into this space and role that I'm in now, the first thing I did was I
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brought everyone together and I said, I want you to bring something in that reminds you of why you love working for
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Adidas Originals >> because it it just and honestly the memories uh that people bring up whether
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it's their their dad's first soccer cleat or it is like a magazine they bought when they were young and all of
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these memories that remind you of like why why do you love love the brand and and we said we we say internally like
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you know if you don't love the brand and what it represents how on earth can you
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persuade the consumers to love the brand of what it represents so again just personally for me it was super important
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and it it was literally um uh work that we did to say let's make sure we we know
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what original stand for And and one other just um insight is actually we also did a a kind of
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workshop internally with many different groups to say what are the two words also that come front of mind when you
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think about Adidas originals and actually the the language our internal team used became a lot of our statements
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of intent which was super cool. Um and and two key words that came out which relates to this campaign as well was
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timeless pioneers. You know what's so interesting about what you're what you're saying is I I
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teach a luxury course and I think about European luxury and to me what you're
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describing is very much in keeping with these iconic European luxury brands where it is about the legacy, the
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history, the original and and it's really important to get within that ethos and not make comparisons and not
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think about all these other things. just think about what that brand means to you. And that has worked for 200 years
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for the European luxury brands. And I think it's a different perspective than
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we typically see in this space in the US. So it feels it feels kind of iconic and European to me. Is that fair or do
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you think I'm reading into it? >> No, I I I do think it's I do think it's
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fair. And we've had many conversations as well internally around you you know
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do do you rely too much on the heritage and how do you keep pushing forward and again it's totally twofold isn't it? It
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is like but our our magic power is also our archive and and people would love to
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have to be able to delve into an archive and then push it forward to today. And again, I think the super important part
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is is the juxaposition between the two of being timeless but yet pioneering. You know, you pushing forward and and I
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do think, you know, the inspiration of being a European brand but then still having the edge to cut through in the US
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too is is is vital as well because you can't just sit as a European brand uh at
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the same time. >> Absolutely. It has to be more than that. But it does give you a something special
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in your DNA that is really unique uniquely yours because you are in a very competitive space. Although you don't
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get that feeling from any of your marketing, you feel like you're the only one, you know, and which is great, but
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truth of the matter is it is quite a comparative area. And so like this gives you a unique differentiation. I think
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>> it it does and and and that's is super important to you can get caught up right
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for sure and in what's happening in the industry and in all the different spaces
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but at the heart of it it is it kind of goes back to you know internally do you love working for the brand and do you
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know what we represent and then make sure you you hold on to that special source externally too. Um, but yeah, so
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it's it's it's super exciting and we applied it to this campaign directly.
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>> That's incredible. I also want to just touch upon this point that you made,
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Annie, with respect. I love this. Can I just >> I just I just listen, every day is a
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parade. I just I just get to talk to smart people and just be inspired. I'm standing over here in my, you know, in
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my house with goosebumps listening to all of this. >> Yeah. Like you're special.
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I love the idea of that the and this is relating back to Barbara's question Annie about how do you pick these icons
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and when you read that list off what immediately jumped to my mind is as soon as you read the name I could literally
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picture the film the song the thing that they did that they did first that you'd
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never seen before and it was like ah so iconic means that yeah we don't follow
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you know we're not following it's what you said in the commercial we're not
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following time we said it Oh, set time. >> Okay, I got to calm down here. But and
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the point be the point being that I love that DNA, Barbara, that notion of, you know, doing things that create creative,
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but yet also it's built on a legacy, a very clearly articulated DNA, all of those different things. And to me,
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that's the magic of marketing. When those things come together in a beautiful authentic way, it just creates
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so much power and so much inspiration for not only consumers but professors of marketing who are out here trying to
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understand how can I take a little bit of of this wisdom, bring it into the classroom and describe to our marketing
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students. This is why we brand because it creates like Barbara was saying all of this additional uh stuff that really
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protects us when other competitors try to show up and claim they've got the same thing. So, I love that point. I
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want to give you kudos for that. Your tracksuit is on fire. This is awesome. You probably get to wear this every day.
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Uh, which is a beautiful thing. Barbara, what else have we I mean, what what what
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else is perkling on your mind, Barb? >> Well, what what I'm thinking about is as
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you're describing this amazing brand, this legacy brand, this original, but now you're, like you said, it's modern,
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and so you've created this wonderful spot that people can see, but I'm sure
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there's other things you're doing to support this campaign. So, what else?
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you know, just getting into some of the brass tax of it. How do you take this beautiful idea and and take it out into
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execution? >> Oh, for sure. And Americus, I love that you know the script because I I could
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read that script of clocks over and over again from the the spot. Know it by heart. And um I could do a whole
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>> section just on Mrs. Samuel Jackson, too, because he was absolutely incredible. But but to to your point
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Barbara, it is you know it's more than just a film and it it was more than um
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just that one spot and that one piece of roll out and kind of what we look at is
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there's three areas that we we drive through with the team. So it is the first one is how do we continue to drive
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equity in Adidas Originals and that is that everything we've talked about so
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far how how are you distinct? How are you consistent? How are you, you know, add us originals authentically? And then
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the second part is and how are we driving true credibility, right? And and that actually is more around grassroots
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and working with all our different markets all around the world and going how do you take take this idea of
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original icons within your spaces? And that then led to many continued uh elements of the campaign from local
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partners, local events. It was all about putting upcoming musicians on a big stage, you know, celebrating uh
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celebrating that. Um it was all about ensuring that the markets were equipped with everything they need to take the
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identity and land it consistently in their market. So we still felt like one holistic brand even though markets could
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really delve into the story in their way. So again, we we kind of talk around how do you act like a big brand but then
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be truly intimate as well like a like a small >> that actually sounds daunting to me you
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know when you start saying all that like I can see creating in some sense the art
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the brand but then to execute it around the world in all these local markets and
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bringing all these different people I mean that sounds like a headache I mean really hard to uh to do flawlessly.
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It's it's huge. It's a huge um it's a huge task. It is for sure. And but we
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work so intimately with every market and we're we're a bit like a welloiled
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machine now at this point, right? We we bring them on the journey from our creative concepting with the market so
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they can again fall in love with where we're going and we we share with them
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here are the partners that we're working with. So it it's it's a journey a long
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journey we go on with the markets and then at some point you there's trust in
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the markets right you run and now you execute it um and and so you know it is a daunting task because you know we're a
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global brand with every country in the entire world that executed this campaign but I do think what has helped us is
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that we had quite a distinct point of view clear creative direction clear intent we brought all the markets along
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in the process and and then we were able to to execute it really wonderfully and
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um yeah just kudos to all the markets as well for for jumping on it. Um and then
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the third pillar to to to the first two is is obviously then how how do you make
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sure then people feel compelled to then want to put superstars on their feet and
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and feel confident in in putting them on their feet. So the business side of it too, right? So equity, credibility,
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okay, now how do we drive drive business off the back of all of the incredible work we've done? So that's how we take
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it just from uh one campaign spot and then pull it all the way through the markets and even I mean we were super
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intentional too around the roll out. Um because the first spot that dropped was just Samuel Jackson with a a script that
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related to pyramids which was so random, right? It it sounds very random. You know, why are we
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talking about pyramids when we're meant to be selling superstars? But again, it
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was the beauty around giving a nod to a wonder of the world and >> yeah, originals, right?
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>> Yeah. I mean, the metaphor of clocks as America's mentioned that I love that
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idea, you know, that tiny bit of that. >> Incredible. So, yeah, that's how we we
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took it and we expanded it again all around the world, every country. And yeah, super proud of what the team and
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every every team around the world have done. >> Yeah. Well, Annie, >> we're letting it all sink in. And it's
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just like >> I just have I'm gonna have to this when the podcast drops, I got to watch this a
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100 times because >> there's so much in here. There's so much so much to share with our students and
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so much really cool wisdom. I love the idea to Barbara's point. She said it was
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daunting and she's 100% correct. this idea of trying to bring things together.
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You historic icon but also pioneering, you know, a large brand that has scale but also personalized and identity
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relevant. So, this is just incredible stuff. >> And also the the idea that it's a
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basketball shoe, it's a functional shoe that's moved into all of these different
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cultural realms and, you know, speaks to identity. Um, it's just kind of amazing.
00:24:38
Well, Annie, thank you so much for joining us today. Where can our listeners go to watch this spot, to find
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out about this campaign, find out about you? >> Oh, for sure they can. Well, definitely
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hit up our our social channels for Adidas and Adidas Originals and our Tik Tok channels and and all that good
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stuff. And then obviously Adidas.com will have the whole shebang on there, too. Um, so please go watch. Yeah, I'm
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still a I'm still a huge huge fan of of it and I I still love watching it. And
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then if you want to catch me LinkedIn um try find me on there. Um happy to happy
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to connect and yeah appreciate um you both. It's been really wonderful and warm and really love chatting to you
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both. >> Excellent. >> Yeah, thank you so much for joining us. That's all we have time for today. Thank
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you all for listening. We'll be back next week. Till then, this has been Marketing Matters on the Wharton podcast
00:25:32
network. I'm Barbara Khan here with America's Reed.