Building hype for the hottest sneaker releases

The challenge

adidas have been releasing new styles of shoes for almost 100 years. New releases have influenced both sportswear and street culture from Jesse Owens’ running shoes in 1936 to Kanye’s Yeezy line in 2019.

Some shoes you can walk into a store and buy straight off the shelf. Others are highly coveted and hard to get hold of. For a sneakerhead, the most important piece of information is what's dropping and when. After that, they want to get excited about The Drop.

The team at adidas.com wanted to create a digital destination for sneakerheads to find out what’s coming, to build anticipation for the new releases and to support their tight, passionate community.

Gaining insight

For sneakerheads, the thrill of the chase is half the fun. Planning your outfit. Finding pictures online that others haven't seen. Trying to gauge the hype and the supply. The ritual around the sneakerhead is key and adidas.com gives structure to their habits.

With access to adidas’ consumer insight, we visited stores in Amsterdam and London to talk to the sneakerheads and the people who interact with them everyday.

We found that the biggest need from this audience is clear information. The community shares the slightest nugget of info on social media and in the streets, but this can often lead to the spread of misinformation. adidas.com needed to become the one source of the truth.

The place where you go to plan your diary, your budget and your next outfit.

The sprint

We believe in design thinking, using finely honed design methods to solve experience-based challenges.

For this project we assembled a hybrid team of adidas and CreateFuture skills from all over Europe & the US.

We brought them together in Shoreditch for one week to crack the challenge in a fun, fast and collaborative way.

We generated over forty ways to improve the user’s experience, prototyped the most promising ideas and tested the new journey with five sneakerheads.

All within five days.

A focus on form…

Less, but more. Together we designed an experience that brings a balance of storytelling and intimate product shots aligned to the user’s stage in the purchase journey.

We fine-tuned how the experience will change as you get closer to the all-important drop, building on consumer-generated hype at every step.

…paired with function

The Sneakerhead comes to the site to plan; their month ahead, their budget and most of all, their next outfit.

New functionality within the site allows them to explore upcoming releases the way they want to.

“This is exactly what I am looking for.”

— Olivia, Sneakerhead

“The group dynamic was electric! We were strategic and collaborative in our decision-making to get to the best result!”

— Justin, Client


The new features, functions and designs have been added to adidas’ release roadmap, with the first feature going live just 3 days after completion of the sprint.