Handmade Materials, Video, Branding and Identity, 2020
Statement
Adidas Adipuncture is a sibling of the Adidas Adissage slide-on shoes. The original slides are black with signature Adidas white stripes and logo, with small rubber stems on the part that contacts the bottom of one’s foot, with the intention of “massaging” the foot. The Adipuncture is designed to convince a viewer that there is a new version of the famous slides that instead promote the benefits of acupuncture rather than massage. While the original shoes have silicone stems, these shoes have pointed screws inserted into them that will poke into the foot of the wearer. The product claims to have the energizing benefits of acupuncture, a preexisting treatment from Chinese culture that is often categorized as “quackery”. The concept of selling shoes relies on the need for people to buy them. In order to get people to want to buy the shoes, branding and advertising become extremely important. Alongside the physical pair of shoes, I created a commercial, social media account, and a website to advertise them and their benefits. These were all created by mimicking the brand identity of Adidas in order to truly convince the viewer that they are a real product of Adidas, and that they will actually ‘work’. The website includes a shopping section for Mens, Womens, and Kids sizes of the shoe, as well as a video that promotes the benefits of the shoes for one’s health and fitness. The website also includes a gallery view and link to the social media account for the shoes, which displays nine social media advertisements of the shoes.
The intended audience for this product is everyone, but it can be marketed towards a few different groups of people; health and fitness fanatics, elders, and people who disapprove of ‘modern medicine’ and prefer more alternative methods of healthcare. For the health and fitness fanatic group, I chose to use certain ‘buzzwords’ that are often found in advertising for similar products, such as “therapeutic,” “healing,” and “endorphin-triggering.” The first message the viewer is prompted with on the website is “Improve and heal yourself with Adidas Adipuncture.” This takes advantage of the tactic often used in the fitness and health industry by implying that no matter who is reading it, there is room for improvement in one’s overall health. For the elders group, I used words such as ‘“tired feet,” “put the pep back in your step,” and “benefits of acupuncture made easy,” in order to appeal to the older generation in a way that is typically done in advertising; Talking about the ease, convenience, and goal of being youthful again are aspirations that are often associated with advertisements geared towards elders. Lastly, for the people who disapprove of ‘modern medicine,’ I used language such as “holistic,” “therapeutic,” and “healing” to appeal to both this group and the fitness group. This language is typically seen in advertising surrounding similar concepts and products that claim to divert themselves from modern medicine and are often more ‘spiritual.’ This language was important to include in order to set the new Adidas Adipuncture apart from the old Adidas Adissage slides, while also reaffirming the product’s position in the wellness industry, like other Adidas products are.
The Adidas Adipuncture shoes and its branding are intended to alter the behavior and ideology of the viewer in several ways. From the outside, the shoes are designed to be sold, and for people to want to purchase and use them. The goal is to get people hooked on the language used to describe them, as well as appeal to them visually in order to make them want the product. On a more subtle level, the Adipuncture shoes and advertising are also intended to make viewers question their understanding of advertisements. When the viewer sees the shoes for the first time, their first question might be whether or not the shoes should be considered dangerous, thus questioning the authority and authenticity of the claims that Adidas is supposedly making. This allows viewers to question the reality of any claim that a company makes, while making it more difficult to distinguish between truths when the branding appears to be authentic. In addition to this, the shoe allows viewers to question whether or not acupuncture should be considered a valid form of treatment, along with several other claims and buzzwords that this product uses. I’m not claiming that acupuncture is or isn’t valid, but I am allowing people to question it and come to their own conclusions, while also creating a space for critique about the wellness industry as a whole.
There were several decisions that allowed the Adipuncture shoes to be convincing in their ‘truthiness.’ The first amount of conviction was created through the making of the shoes from old, repurposed Adidas Adisage slides that were no longer in use. The rubber ‘massage’ part was peeled up, and any remnants of glue on the inside of the shoe were painted over with black. Then, in each shoe, one-inch black carpenter screws were hand-drilled into the sole in a regular pattern, making the shoes look identical to their origins. I mimicked the pattern of the original Adidas slide by paying close attention to where each screw went, making sure none were too close or too far from each other, and making them as close to factory-designed as I could. Each shoe has 370 screws into the bottom of them, making 740 screws in total. Each shoe took approximately five or more hours to make, as it was very strenuous to drill each screw into the show. Because the screws are black and are set on an already black shoe, the sandals can hardly be differentiated from the originals. Afterwards, I cleaned the used shoes to make them look new again with their updated functionality. The shoes were then photographed from several angles inside of a lightbox in order to create professional images of the shoes. In addition to this, I recorded a few close-up video clips to incorporate them into a ‘commercial’ that I filmed with the help of my father and grandmother. Of course, my grandma did not put the Adipuncture shoes on in the footage, but another pair of original slides. After recording footage for the commercial featuring my grandmother, I recorded the voiceover script with the help of my father in order to compile them into the commercial. In order to replicate the Adidas branding, I researched their identity and mimicked it to the best of my ability, while also creating a logotype for Adipuncture. My version of the Adidas branding consists of a simple black and white color scheme and the inclusion of the Adidas wordmark, as well as a similar bold sans serif that fit into the identity. The wordmark for Adipuncture is a magenta sans serif that has a fluidity that calls to the action of flesh being punctured with a sharp object. The decision to name the shoes Adipuncture came from a combination of ‘Adidas’ and ‘acupuncture.’ In addition to this, I reference the original shoe name, Adissage, a combination of ‘Adidas’ and ‘massage.’ After creating the branding, I was able to apply it to the video, social media posts, and posters. In their social media, I replicated Adidas’ bio from their original site and replaced their link with my Adipuncture link.
The video uses animations along with the official Adidas logotype in conjunction with the Adipuncture wordmark that I created. The animations and edits are created to appear professional because of the proper lighting equipment I used, the professional camera, and techniques such as zoom and blur to create simple yet effective visual effects. These effects created depth of field when zoomed into the actual product so one could get the feel of a real, high definition commercial. All of the footage was then edited in a way that was inspired by commercials that we often see, being primarily similar to infomercials. This involved the question of “Do you have tired, old feet?” to get the attention of the viewer, and the inclusion of an elderly person rubbing their feet, while being the first and only person the viewer sees in the commercial. I used the lining up of buzzwords and visuals to create emphasis on the product and the action happening. Two examples of these buzzwords are “Then slide into the benefits of acupuncture” while the imagery shows the person sliding into their sandals. “Let’s get right to the point” is synced up with a close-up shot of the screws in the shoe, in which the blur and lighting call attention to the sharp tip at the end of each screw. The commercial leaves viewers with a call to action; “Supplies limited, order today!” This again reinforces the typical style of language and editing that is seen in infomercials directed towards the elderly.
The website was created using similar components to the Adidas brand, such as the black and white color palette and sans serif type. In addition to this, I replicated the tabs of shopping categories and the order they appear in, to create a site that appears to be the Adidas shopping page. The front page displays the advertisement video, and below it is a gallery that shows the posts on the Instagram page. Each post for the Instagram page is a different poster advertising the Adipuncture shoes, including the Adipuncture logotype and images of the shoes themselves, creating dynamic compositions in each of them that could be applied to this brand and type of product.
All of these components are able to achieve ‘truthiness’ in several ways. The creation of the shoe, the documentation, and the advertising are all created in a way that looks professional. The shoe itself looks machine-made and machine-measured, while the photography and design of the advertisements appear authentic to their origins. In addition to this, I’ve used convincing vernacular that speaks to the types of advertising in the wellness industry that I have replicated. Overall, the design and creation of the product and its materials that followed served the purpose of convincing the viewer that they were looking at an authentic Adidas product. The Adidas Adipuncture shoes exist as a physical product that carries with it a branded identity and designed materials, while also serving as a space for critique of the information we see on the internet and the claims made by the wellness industry. It was an interesting process to create a modified shoe and to use it to inform my decisions and my own criticisms of over-the-top claims that we often see in advertising. I have worn them, and they are indeed painful, but it is intriguing to me that I have the ability to create something that could convince someone to actually wear them as well.
Douglas B. Connard 