Adidas’ new Superstar campaign pairs stripped-back visuals with a star-studded cast to deliver minimalist production and maximum cultural impact. Directed by Thibaut Grevet and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the black-and-white films, Pyramids and Clocks, position the sneaker as a monument.
The casting spans generations and geographies, featuring Missy Elliott, Jennie, GloRilla, Anthony Edwards, Mark Gonzales, Teezo Touchdown, and Gabbriette, each presented as an icon in their field.
It is advertising at its aesthetic peak. Grevet’s visuals echo the sneaker’s original black-and-white colourway. Jackson’s narration lends gravitas. The metaphor is elegantly simple: like the pyramids, the Superstar endures precisely because it doesn’t change.
But beneath the confident execution lies a strategic paradox: does timelessness create growth, or merely protect what already exists?
The Authentic Relationship That Grounds This Superstar Campaign
The casting is no accident. This is Adidas, after all. It reflects the Superstar’s unique cultural history. Released in 1969 as a basketball performance shoe, the Superstar transcended its category in the 1980s when Run DMC, at the height of their influence, wore them laceless on stage, cementing their status as the first sneaker adopted and popularised by hip-hop culture.
Missy Elliott represents this legacy with credibility; her career charts the Superstar’s journey from street icon to global cultural staple. Mark Gonzales, a pioneering skateboarder, captures the silhouette’s seamless adoption into skate culture in the 1990s. Jennie and GloRilla carry the torch forward into contemporary music and fashion, while Anthony Edwards reconnects the sneaker to its basketball roots. Teezo Touchdown and Gabbriette bring avant-garde subcultural edge, ensuring relevance beyond nostalgia.
These are not just “names for reach”. Each has an authentic relationship with the Superstar’s history of crossing subcultural lines, most notably Missy Elliot. This casting roots the campaign in credibility rather than tokenism, ensuring the message of timelessness feels earned rather than engineered.
Adidas Superstar: The Comfort of Familiarity Driver and Limits
People trust what they recognise. This campaign leverages that truth masterfully. Jackson’s voice carries instant authority, while the cast bridges cultural boundaries to ensure broad resonance. The narrative immerses viewers in a world where permanence is the ultimate aspiration.
Yet familiarity alone rarely compels. While this approach generates admiration, it lacks tension or novelty to activate behaviour. There are no scarcity triggers, reinterpretations, or cultural provocations here, only a reminder that the Superstar is, and always has been, an icon.
Superstar Commercial Genius or Strategic Stagnation?
On the surface, this conservative strategy seems at odds with a market defined by reinvention. Nike fuses heritage with performance innovation. New Balance reinterprets nostalgia through Teddy Santis and Aimé Leon Dore. Adidas here opts for reverence over reinterpretation.
However, dismissing this as a mishap misses the broader commercial context. In 2024, Adidas posted currency-neutral revenue growth of 12% to €23.68 billion, with operating profit up by over €1 billion to €1.34 billion. Footwear grew 17%, led by heritage silhouettes like Superstar, Samba, and Gazelle. Q1 2025 continued the trajectory: revenue climbed 13% to €6.15 billion, operating profit surged 82% to €610 million, and North America rebounded 13%, excluding Yeezy.
After the volatility of the Yeezy fallout, anchoring brand equity in uncontroversial icons like Superstar is more than safe, it is strategically astute. Where Yeezy was a high-risk, high-reward play tethered to one celebrity, Superstar is democratised cultural capital. This is deliberate stabilisation.
The Strategic Opportunity Cost
Still, brands endure not because they stand still, but because they reimagine what they stand for. People buy heritage when it feels like the past reinterpreted, not the past repeated.
Adidas’ Superstar campaign does not attempt such reinterpretation. It chooses stabilisation over acceleration, safety over cultural risk. In the short term, this is commercially defensible. In the long term, it carries an opportunity cost: timelessness can become background noise without tension to keep it alive.
This campaign is not a failure of imagination; it is a choice. After Yeezy, Adidas needed stabilising icons to rebuild equity and diversify risk.
Adidas, consolidating timelessness today creates the stability to redefine it tomorrow.
"Where you at Superstar?"
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