A creative, musical collaboration at the heart of this campaign was intrinsic to its success. Adidas’ 3 BAR SUPERSTAR put a 3-bar gap in Grime pioneer Kano’s latest track: a sound-engineered break designed to give unheard talent a space to be heard.

This original music content turned mobile phones into microphones. And novel use of a recording artist became an investment in an audience demographic who were underinvested, by the government and education system.

We opened up Kano’s studio to the streets to give everyone access, not just the few. So they, despite all odds, could be a Superstar, too.

Situation: UK arts funding has been slashed significantly in recent years – with local government funding decreasing by 43% since 2008 and A-level music courses having an average of 3 students per class. Musical talent was being under-invested, overlooked and unheard. The UK, a nation famous as one of the world’s biggest exporters in music, was at risk of going quiet.

Brief: Re-establish the status of the Superstar shoe – synonymous with its music heritage - for its 50th anniversary. Empower youth culture by bringing positive change to a key, adidas cultural pillar (e.g. Music) by re-inventing it, democratizing it or bringing new possibilities to it.

Objective: Rather than focus on the past to tell the story, we needed to look to the future and speak to the next generation that will wear the Superstar.

Worn by Run DMC at the birth of rap culture, adidas’ iconic Superstar shoe once stood for originality, inspiring subcultures like UK Grime. But today with arts cuts and music schools closing, original UK talent have no space to be heard.

So we wiped out 3 musical bars from Grime-pioneer Kano’s latest track – in homage to the shoes’ 3-bar design – with an innovative mobile site that gave young lyricists the chance to win recording time with Kano himself.

UK arts funding has been slashed significantly in recent years – with local government funding decreasing by 43% since 2008 and A-level music courses having an average of 3 students per class. Musical talent was being under-invested, overlooked and unheard. The UK, a nation famous as one of the world’s biggest exporters in music, was at risk of going quiet.

And as Grime pushes to the forefront of the UK music scene, there was a clear audience we targeted. From economically deprived, working-class backgrounds in urban areas, 16-24 year old fans of grime were feeling the brunt of these cuts the most.

So, by using mobile we made the project accessible and democratized studio time, alongside promotional ATL/radio targeting our audience locally.

By using Kano, a well-known, respectable influencer, and pioneer of the subculture, made 3 Bar Superstar as an ‘open’ platform relevant to our audience, the issue, and brand.

In regard to implementation, an innovative mobile site (hosted as a bespoke URL and on JD Sports homepage) seamlessly allowed young lyricists to create their own MC name, allowed them to ‘drop in’ to the track after Kano’s lines, record and submit their bars instantly as the music played, it then took entrants bars and generated a bespoke music video of their performance for them to share with friends.

This was promoted through a widespread campaign of launch films, social teasers, out of home, an innovative experience, localised radio in urban cities across the UK and even invites to school common rooms to inspire young talent.

We opened up Kano’s studio to those on the streets, un-supported by the system through an innovative platform that turned mobile phones into microphones.

For our timeline, we launched on 13.02.20, with the competition window running to 01.03.20. All further activity finished on 30.10.20.

3 BAR SUPERSTAR made adidas’ iconic Superstar shoe stand for something once again. Placing it as a facilitator of music, it gave under-invested talent a platform to be heard, with 35,500 mobile studio sessions, 4,500 bars of rap dropped, equating to 72 solid-hours of ‘airtime’ given to young talent. And 1,432 finalists were seen by industry reps.

It generated mass awareness (the key business target), inspiring hype in national publications, local radio and gaining kudos in subculture, through GQ, Trapped Magazine, MixMag, Versus, I Am HipHop London and more – equating to more than 10 million impressions.

We showed that anyone can be a Superstar, regardless of background or economic opportunity, as one raw voice from the campaign excelled. ‘Selass’ recorded the song ‘Check’ with Kano in his studio, which launched on Tidal, Spotify, Apple Music and more worldwide, as 3 Bar Superstar left an immeasurable mark on the culture.