adidas Basketball - Harden Vol. 1
Our mission: Build hype for James Harden's first signature shoe – without ever showing the shoe... teasing its upcoming release for T-H-R-E-E months. The goal: Attract and engage a legion of hyperfocused, diehard, participatory fans. The answer: Project Harden, a campaign matching the disruptive and enigmatic energy of James Harden himself. We exploded the story James' shoe, Harden Vol. 1, in 14 distinct chapters exclusively on Instagram.

The strategy behind the campaign stemmed from primary research probing the social media habits of teens in three cities, which focused on four key insights:
--Make users part of the action. Gen Z thrives on participation.
--Establish a sense of discovery by making them work for it.
--Let the audience be the deciders and they will become advocates, too.
--Give them special access—to celebrities, information and products.

Upending the platform’s native functionality, each week content was taken down and built anew with 9 interconnected posts. Clues about the shoe design and insights to Harden’s personality were encoded with a variety of tactics. The format was deliberately non-linear, jumping between distinct stories each week to break with conventional narrative and prevent people from getting too comfortable. The visual language was glitchy, kinetic and hard-edged, aligning with James Harden's iconoclastic style and swagger. The content strategy centered on sharing different aspects of Harden's personality, his game,  gear,  life, and future.