PROJECT OVERVIEW
The back-to-school season is one of adidas' biggest commercial moments of the year. For 2023, we were asked to create a market relevant, product focused campaign to span July through September, highlighting our cross-category apparel, footwear, and accessories for kids, teens, and college aged students. In previous years, adidas North America(NAM) had relied heavily on globally released toolkits for the bigger commercial moments like this, and although these may have had a unified look & feel across brand comms globally, they often resulted in less relevant product stories and less consumer-specific content. For 2023 our goal was to solve this disconnect. Through showcasing localized product offerings in a NAM-centric context and including NAM-relevant athletes from our NIL partnerships, we were able to tailor our creative approach to be more specific to this market.

MY ROLE
+ Setting both photo and graphic direction for the entirety of the campaign. 
+ Casting talent and scouting locations.
+ Working with our stylist to ensure our product needs are represented.
+ Creating detailed shot-lists that corresponded to our final deliverables.
+ Directing photography on-set along side Bernadette Little and Colin Sias.

CREATIVE DIRECTION
We approached the Back to School campaign as a realistic three-part narrative that we called: The Journey Back. The Back to school season isn’t just about the first day. It’s about the journey and the buildup to that moment we’re all back together. Our back-to-school concept showcased three key age groups gearing up for the coming school year– everything from choosing the perfect outfits to the reunion with classmates and friends on the big day. Being that our campaign launched in 3 parts, spanning Juy-September, this segmentation provided us with a way to coordinate our content with each month’s release in a way that felt authentic to each stage of the “back to school” journey. July content focused on in-home context, highlighting individual’s preparation before the school day. August focused on at-school, exterior context, hanging out before the bell with friends. September rounded out the narrative by capturing our talent in interior, in-class settings.

photographer: Jake Jones
sr. art director: Bernadette Little
sr. designer: Stephen Paff
sr. designer: Colin Sias
designer: Eli Caudillo
sr. producer: Chelsea Noonan
sr. pm: Bri Golden

sr. copywriter: Brandon Brown
executive producer: Mesa Lange
production coordinator: Raf Sanchez
production designer: Jade Harris
set decorator: Gwen Hopman-Damon
product planner: Marissa Sullivan
wardrobe stylist: Jess McCreary

NCAA talent #1: Hailey Van Lith
NCAA talent #2: Mia Bhuta
NCAA talent #3: Ally Lemos
teen talent #1: Jurnee T.
teen talent #2: Skyler C.
teen talent #3: Brooklyn C.
teen talent #4: Harper J.

teen talent #5: Landon L.
teen talent #6: Emanuelle L.
teen talent #7: Don L.
kids talent #1: Amory O.
kids talent #2: Allison K.
kids talent #3: Huxley N.
kids talent #4: Carter K.