Adidas swims to success with Cannes-winning OOH campaign

To promote its inclusive, full-cover swimwear collection, Adidas created ‘the world’s first swimmable billboard’ at a Dubai beach, inviting women to dive in.

The idea was to help women break past the emotional, societal, and physical barriers that often keep women from getting into swimwear and getting into the water, and to physically provide a space to embrace that freedom in the water. By showing other women physically swimming inside the five meters high and three meters deep billboard, the goal was to encourage other women to do the same.

The campaign showcases the brand’s inclusive swimwear collection and features a large tank of water erected on a popular beach in Dubai, and one of the key moments from the supporting video is of a young woman wearing an Adidas swimsuit with attached hijab. She says: “When I was growing up, I never saw women that looked like me, wearing the hijab, and I feel like that hindered my ability to kind of dream.”

The activation swam to success and was awarded one of the industry’s highest honours: the Outdoor Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.