by The metaverse may be yesterday’s news for the media, but its incarnations live on, even thrive. Don’t use the “m” word. Call it gaming or virtual fashion instead — like Adidas’ latest collaboration on Roblox, which recently included a digital necklace that sold for around $20,000.
The athletic apparel and sneaker giant has teamed up with @WhoseTrade, a 25-year-old Cleveland-based Roblox creator named Jonathan Courtney, in a UGC (or user-generated content) partnership. As a result of the market, in which several items dropped during the month of May, the virtual chain as well as a customized physical product, sold for 2 million Robux almost immediately.
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According to Thomas Wehner, an Adidas executive who runs strategy, sustainability, virtual world and gaming initiatives, the company was looking for a creative Roblox collaborator with strong community ties, in an effort to mirror its real-life partnerships.
“We are a collaborative brand,” he told WWD. “We’ve done this in hip-hop. We’ve been doing this in skateboarding since the ’70s, ’80s and we continue to do this in the 21st century as well. So we were just slipping into his DMs, giving him, I guess, an item of campus footwear.”
Courtney remembers it differently. As a creator who has previously worked with brands – such as the music company Monstercat, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the consumer brand Nivea – and as a fan of the sneaker brand since childhood, he approached the company when he saw it is active with digital drops. .
It started, however, both partners recognized the game, resulting in a great collection of Roblox users.
For Adidas, which has tried for years in gaming, that was no fluke. This is all part of a strategy that has only recently crystallized, with its vision spawning a new dedicated business unit.
From Droighnean to Pouring out
Adidas opened its archives to inspire Courtney, and then worked with Courtney, giving feedback on the @WhoseTrade drops, resulting in a collection that moves from the absurd to the popular .
The range included a rainbow ski mask, a shoebox backpack, a boombox and even an Adidas-style banana – which, of the more than 1,000 available, sold out in about half an hour.
“That was me pushing to see how long [I could go],” Courtney explained. “Very few people would say yes, let’s make a virtual banana, and they said yes, which was great.
“Brands don’t usually do it, but I hope that continues to change, as brands start to trust creators more with what we know about the platform and our community.”
The banana and others primed the pumps for the digital necklace, which debuted a few weeks ago.
Simon Burgess, a digital collector and co-founder of Studio Abracadabra, developer of the popular Roblox game series SharkBite, almost immediately broke the item.
Burgess has limited more than 5,000 items, but this necklace is “already a highlight of my collection,” he told WWD, “because not only do you get the [singularly unique] a limited item that can be resold on the platform, but also a physical one-of-a-kind custom pair of Adidas shoes in real life.”
The pack includes a real-world pair of the FG Fast Reborn Elite Laceless Fast Reborn F-50 boots, a revival of Adidas’ celebrated boot in honor of its 20th anniversary.
Digital-physical pairings, so-called “phygital,” come in many forms – from virtual replicas of real products to digital collectibles that provide exclusive access to real-life events. Roblox, which is expanding in-game shopping opportunities, sees more and more brands jumping on this bandwagon.
But an Adidas executive insists it’s not just about selling things. It’s about creativity, authenticity and participating in how people shape their virtual identity.
This is important to the younger consumers who come to games and creates a cottage industry of avatar skins, hair and costumes. That is also what attracts brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and many others to these platforms.
“It’s almost like part of your identity, and this is something we want to talk about when we come to games,” Wehner said. “We really want to create virtual identity options for these players that are authentic to the platform and authentic to the player base.”
Why Adidas Are Ripe Bananas…and More
There is a direct line between Adidas’ interests in virtual worlds and gaming – across blockchain and NFTs efforts (Bored Ape Yacht Club, for example) and platforms such as Fortnite, Minecraft and now, from December 2023, Roblox – and where the brand its path in the virtual future.
And it is not completely divorced from the physical business.
“Look at the collaborations we’re doing in real life with Jeremy Scott or someone else,” Wehner continued. “There’s a lot of creativity that we allow on a physical product, but now you’re moving into an unfettered, limitless virtual world, [and] we don’t want to be too restrictive about what’s in the framework.”
That explains why a global athletic apparel giant like Adidas has no qualms about putting their branding on a virtual banana. This kind of thinking goes against conventional business wisdom, which fiercely defends branding amid fears of brand dilution. But that’s such a serious, carefully curated approach, it’s not necessarily suited to gaming platforms, where authenticity – and perhaps a sense of humor – is best displayed.
According to Adidas, authenticity and creativity guide the company’s roadmap for virtual projects, already planned during 2027.
Of course, anything can happen in the next few years. What the company is sure of, however, is that it won’t just be a digital play. Sometimes, those efforts will include a physical product, Wehner said.
For now, Adidas is surveying the possibilities. It anticipates emerging platforms for brand fit, including category-specific games such as the sports genre. He is also preparing a range of new initiatives over the next two to three months. Wehner could not reveal the exact nature of those projects, but it is hard to forget the time, when the Paris Games 2024 began.
Meanwhile, while all of that is underway, Adidas is creating the basic organizational structure that underpins these projects, and a new business unit dedicated to gaming.
First Mover Advantage
Launched quietly in January with Wehner at the helm, Adidas Gaming is still working through its early days. “Right now, we’ve really established this as a sales operation that comes with a cherry on top of having brand awareness,” he said.
Puja Chakraborty, head of product at Adidas Gaming, doubled down on the authenticity of these types of projects – and more.
This Roblox collaboration was “very authentic, and that’s exactly what we are too [strive for] in the real-life products, in the physical products … we stay authentic to that collaborator, that creator,” she said. “WhooseTrade was on the scene, and we wanted to have a perfect marriage between its authenticity, its credibility, and what we do and what we stand for as a brand and our brand values.”
That is the main ingredient of the work, but it is not the only aspect for Adidas Gaming. The other is timing and nimbly movement. For example, it took only eight weeks from an information meeting to the opening of its first pop-up store on Roblox. The @WhoseTrade drops took even less time, about six weeks or so. The coming weeks will bring more efforts, Adidas hopes, that will appeal to a younger gaming community.
“We’re in the industry of producing cultural products and sports products, and so much of it is in the virtual space,” Wehner added. “It’s not even a question of whether we should be in it, to be honest.
“So everybody that’s not building virtual fashion or virtual product, I think they’re missing out – which is good for us, because it gives us a little bit of a first-mover advantage in the next couple of years to build awareness and loyalty.” really build with real interest. a young target group, and also Gen Z.”
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