Case Study: Adidas Parkour – rebel
Fitness without limits. Movement without permission.
Fitness without limits. Movement without permission.
When Adidas briefed us to launch their latest fitness range, we knew the usual approach wouldn’t cut through. The running track. The gym. The treadmill. All too expected. Instead, we took performance to the streets—literally.
Shot at night on location in Melbourne, Adidas Parkour followed two runners who begin with a casual, almost meditative ritual—activating their fitness trackers as they prepare for a standard city run. But within moments, the mood shifts. One vaults a fence. The shortcut sparks the race. The chase is on.
What unfolds is a kinetic, high-stakes sprint through the city’s nocturnal underbelly. Electric bridges. Empty alleyways. Train lights streaking by. As the competition escalates, so too does the ambition—culminating in a pulse-pounding stunt where one runner sprints the full arch of a city bridge, silhouetted against the floodlit skyline.
The concept reframed fitness as play, performance, and tactical creativity—elevating the product context from exercise to expression. No longer just clothing for working out, the Adidas range became gear for moving through the world with agility and confidence.
From a production standpoint, this was a stunt-heavy, night-shoot project requiring precision planning. We worked with a professional stunt coordinator to choreograph parkour sequences that were visually stunning, safe, and physically credible. Shooting overnight allowed us to control lighting, create visual drama, and reduce risk to the public while capturing Melbourne’s cityscape at its most cinematic.
The campaign tapped into the cultural zeitgeist—at a moment when parkour, freerunning, and hybrid fitness movements were surging in popularity. It visually aligned Adidas with a new generation of urban athletes and redefined what training looked like.
From a behavioural standpoint, the campaign employed vivid imagery, social proof through skill, and identity signalling—positioning wearers not just as runners, but as creative tacticians mastering their environment.
Results:
33% uplift in Adidas fitness range sales in rebel stores across the launch quarter
Over 4.2M views across paid, organic, and in-store channels
Campaign delivered highest engagement rate of the season on rebel’s Instagram
Noted increase in brand recall among Gen Z and younger millennial fitness segments
Campaign cited by Adidas APAC as “category-defining” for urban performance content
Why it worked:
It broke the boundaries—of space, of sport, of expectation. Adidas Parkour didn’t just show athletes training. It showed them hacking the city. And it positioned Adidas as the brand built for whatever path they take.