Apple’s AirDrop is a technology typically used for sharing photos and videos with people closeby. Adidas used this technology in a completely innovative way by creating a bespoke AR experience for it and turning it into an unexpected form of advertising media.

Adidas was about to release its greatest running shoe—The Ultraboost19, and they wanted to get sneakerheads across America excited to buy the shoes. The only catch was— all we had was a picture of what this shoe looked like. So our brief was to get sneaker enthusiasts talking about a shoe that hadn’t even been released, and have them visit adidas.com to sign up to get on the waitlist.

We decided that to get people excited about this shoe, we had to get them to try it on. But we needed a medium to create a digital try-on for a shoe that hadn't even been released. Then we needed a medium to deliver it to sneakerheads in the market for new sneakers.

We realized that our demographic, sneakerheads, thinks about sneakers in three places— stores where they buy sneakers, events where they go to show-off their sneakers, and Snapchat— where they post about their newest sneakers.

So we wanted to hijack every single major sneaker store and fashion boutique in New York, LA, Houston, Chicago and have people who are in the market for new sneakers, try-on OUR sneakers instead.

Then we dropped the experience onto people’s phones at basketball games, hip-hop concerts and most importantly— Snapchat to get everyone deep in the sneaker culture talking about it.

The week of the Ultraboost19 launch, people shopping in Nike stores got a notification via Apple’s AirDrop: “Ultraboost19 is here, be the first to try it on”. When they clicked this digital flyer, it opened up a first-of-its-kind augmented reality experience that let them try on the new adidas sneaker, just by pointing their phone at their feet.

So with the use of the unlikely medium of AirDrops, we had people trying on adidas shoes— in Nike stores (and everywhere else).

60 Million shoe try-ons

2.4 Million visits to adidas.com to sign up for release updates

12% increase in brand favorability

Shoe sold out in under an hour

Subsequent release sold out in 10 minutes