adidas Originals celebrates original spirits and HK subcultures with localised campaign

adidas Hong Kong and DDB Hong Kong have joined forces to honour the evolution of the Originals brand and promote the brand’s advocacy for original self expression via a new localised campaign.

Aligning with the spirit of its global initiative “We gave the world an original, they gave us a thousand back”, the Hong Kong campaign aims to celebrate the original spirits who adopt this brand as part of their lifestyles, connecting subculture icons and retailers with their communities.

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The local initiatives will run for six weeks, in conjunction with the global campaign. Other major markets in Asia who will be promoting the campaign locally include China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

The initiative wishes to honour some of the signatures from the adidas Originals shoe range, including the Samba, the Gazelle and the Superstar. Originally designed for football, track and basketball respectively, each have transcended these intentions and are now popular among skateboarding, breakdancing and hip-hop communities in the Hong Kong.

As such, the brand hopes to celebrate this story by partnering with specialty stores and local representatives to encourage their communities to continue embracing and expressing their own originality, in an era of fast-fashion and copycat culture. 

The Superstar collaboration pairs the shoe with local hip hop artist, Novel Fergus, and neighbourhood vinyl store, White Noise Records. The Gazelle collaboration comprises breakdance athlete, C Plus, and Kabo Burger in Tsim Tsa Tsui district. Meanwhile, Samba teams up with Dong Dong, a local model who is also a passionate skateboarder, and neighbourhood skate shop, Psyroot.

As part of the campaign, each specialty store will become an “Originals” pop-up venue, offering shoppers the opportunity to create their own personal iconic Originals image instore, as well as Gatcha machine giveaways, including vouchers, skateboard stickers and tattoo stickers.

To engage with a wider audience, retail marketing initiatives have been leveraged. Flagship adidas stores in both Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay will also feature Originals experiences including photo opportunities and Gatcha capsule giveaways, as well as customised artwork displays.

Promotional posters of the campaign, showcasing the three Hong Kong collaborations will be seen around town, with a strong presence in neighbourhoods of the specialty pop-up stores. 

Felix Fong, head of digital at DDB Group Hong Kong, said, “Localising a global campaign can be challenging but identifying strong intersections across brand, community and culture, and leveraging existing connections the brand has nurtured over time, enabled us to take a global platform and activate it at a very local level.”  

Cherry Wong, creative director at DDB Group Hong Kong, added, “The localisation of this campaign wouldn’t work unless we found authentic spaces for it. Truly understanding the skating, hip hop and dance communities in Hong Kong was the creative key to legitimise the brand’s message for this campaign. We knew we were in the right places when we realised how happy everyone we approached was to be working with the brand.”

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