Cannes Ad Fest: 'Adidas Odds' highlights challenges faced by para athletes

Campaign aims to create shoes with two lefts or two rights, depending upon requirements of athlete

It is not often that we see para-athletes advertising sports shoes. But sportswear company Adidas decided to break convention when it went ahead with ‘Adidas Odds’, a campaign conceptualised by Taproot Dentsu. The campaign highlights the challenges faced by para athletes and looks to resolve these by creating a pair of shoes with two lefts or two rights, depending upon the requirements of the athlete.

 
Adidas’s intention was to examine its brand’s effectiveness in resolving some of the big issues that plague the categories it works in. Adidas examined the problem of footwear and came up with a simple solution.
 
One of the problems that para athletes face is finding the most appropriate footwear. They have to make do with shoes meant for regular athletes: a pair of right-left shoes that leaves them using just one of the shoes in the box while leaving the other untouched. Not only is this wasteful but, it also reflects the neglect that society and businesses have heaped on para athletic sports.
 
‘Adidas Odds’, a special collection of shoes consisting of pairs of lefts or rights, came about due to this felt-need. “It is a simple idea, where if you interchange two pairs of shoes taking either lefts or rights (in a box), it can go a long way to help this community,” Santosh Padhi, chief creative officer and co-founder, Taproot Dentsu, said. “Adidas is now contemplating taking this idea to the next level with either two left or two right pair of gloves and socks for these athletes,” he says.
 
Padhi, who returned from Cannes last week along with partner Agnelo Dias with two silver medals and a bronze Lion for the campaign, said the agency had been keen to elevate the idea of two lefts and two rights by using real para-athletes for the campaign. Major DP Singh, a Kargil war veteran and India’s first blade runner was drafted in, though the agency believes it should have done more to get more faces and voices talking about the initiative. “Had we done that the multiple faces would have added more depth to the campaign,” he says.
 
But lack of time, said Padhi, ensured that the agency had to clip its ambitious plans. “But we still had Major DP Singh and his story was depicted in all its stark glory,” Padhi said. That Singh, the face of the campaign, which ran for a week during the 2016 Paralympic Games, continues engaging with consumers both online and offline even now, is a testimony of its success, Padhi says.
 
Released across media including digital, television and outdoor, the campaign shows Singh running on a bridge, a mountain and a road even as the voice-over (by actor Kabir Bedi) says, “Odd, isn’t it? For a man to run when technically he shouldn’t even be walking?”
 
Singh’s desire to excel against all odds is starkly in display in the commercial. Limping on one foot at home, sweating it out in the gym, slipping on the artificial limb for the morning run, staring with steely determination into the mirror—nothing is left to the imagination here as viewers get a chance to dive into the life of a para athlete.
 
Padhi says there was dual message for viewers: Not only was the campaign a dedication to para athletes, it also conveyed the message that nothing was impossible if you wanted to achieve it. “If they (para athletes) can come this far, so why can’t we was the message for an able-bodied individual,” he said. The campaign bagged a silver in the direct marketing and design categories at the Cannes Ad Fest 2017. It also bagged a bronze in the health and wellness category at the festival.
 

On the campaign trail

Adidas Odds

 

• Released in September 2016 during the Paralympic Games, 'Adidas Odds', created by Taproot Dentsu focused on creating odd pairs (two left feet or two right) to better suit the needs of para athletes.
• The idea is a simple one: Make a pair of rights or lefts, depending on what the wearer needs.
• Taproot Denstu decided to give the idea greater immediacy and impact by using real life para athletes for the campaign, giving them a chance to tell their story and also tell regular people that nothing was impossible.
• The campaign bagged a bronze Lion and two silver medals at the Cannes Ad Fest 2017.