With the international launch of its campaign for a new line of premium jeans for Adidas and Diesel, Montreal agency Sid Lee is making it clear that its ready to play on the global stage with world-famous brands.
“We’re doing more and more projects for Adidas on a worldwide scale,” explained Sid Lee president Jean-François Bouchard. “This is the most important worldwide project being done by a Canadian agency. The notion of working for two high-profile brands in a joint collaboration is a unique and rare opportunity.”
Sid Lee has done work for Adidas in the past, but on a smaller scale, said Bouchard, citing last fall’s “Your World” campaign for the U.S. and other projects in Germany.
The new campaign for the line of jeans, called Adidas Originals Denim by Diesel, used the tag line: “83 original ways to successfully waste your time.”
The goal was to express the spirit and originality of both the collection and two brands, said Bouchard, adding that the number 83 was picked at random and has no real significance. The jeans are available in all Adidas corporate stores worldwide, including Canada.
The 83 time-wasters are captured by photography in a humorous way and displayed outdoors, in store, in print and online where browsers are invited to submit their own images and videos.
In addition to the campaign, which is expected to last into the summer, Sid Lee is also involved in designing the interiors of some of Adidas’ new flagship stores, including New York and Berlin.
“We’ll become more and more involved in the store design end of the business,” said Bouchard.
And last month, the agency opened a temporary office in Amsterdam while its new European head office, scheduled to open in the fall, is being built nearby. Amsterdam was chosen partially because it’s also the European office of Cirque de Soleil, another client that Sid Lee works for on a worldwide basis.
Sid Lee began business in 1993 as Diesel but changed its name in late 2006 to Sid Lee, an anagram of Diesel, in part because of confusion with the denim brand it now works for.
