We Run Winter for adidas Running

Agency: Archrival | Client: adidas Running

We Run Winter was an integrated brand experience for adidas running to empower women to continue to train through the winter.

Our strategic insight showed college women we’re less motivated by winning than the sense of a shared accomplishment. Our task became to give this insight soul by creating an empowering experience while also promoting the exclusive adidas UltraBOOST ATR line.

Winter in the midwest is a blustery bitch, the perfect location to highlight product benefits of the new ATR (“all terrain”) line. We created a giant ice monolith as an adversarial representation of the cold of winter and challenged women to work together to defeat it.

The culminating event was planned for the fall in order to skirt the changing of the season. And like midwestern clockwork, the night before temperatures dropped to a balmy 27 and the wind picked up. There’s beauty in the unpredictability of midwestern weather. With this the perfect stage was set for the experience. Outside the student union, the ice monolith was installed. Frozen in the ice were 25 running bibs with their unique numbers obscured. The objective for the following day: Melt out the bibs by running together.

We got the word out with targeted organic and paid social posts, influencer outreach, vertical athlete seeding and on the ground one-to-one student seeding. When the day came, the die hards showed up.

We Run Winter was a collective running experience. Women were given a stylized running bib and set out on a 5K lap around campus. The run was lead by industry and campus influencers with an emphasis on community rather than speed. At the half-way point, runners pressed a button to activate high-power heaters back at the ice installation. Each depression of the button, activated the heaters.

Back at the ice, DJ spun an empowerment-themed playlist while a local fitness icon hyped the crowd. The bibs melted out revealing the obscured numbers. Women wearing the bib numbers matching the numbers in the ice won the exclusive UltraBOOST X ATR all-weather running shoes. Each woman who won ran hugged the emcee and a spontaneous dance party exploded. A testament to the community.

Together, they melted the ice. Together, they ran winter.

Agency: Archrival
Client: adidas Running
Project: We Run Winter
Asset(s): Ice sculpture design, physical activation, spacial design, social assets
Role: Creative Direction; Art direction; Spatial Design