At the height of his popularity thanks to the historic series Twin Peaks, which changed television at the beginning of the 1990s, the indomitable and surrealist film director David Lynch, who died yesterday at the age of 78, was in high demand
And as the darling of celluloid, a film genius with multiple layers, content and messages in his films, he was signed by Adidas to launch its ‘tubular technology’ in sneakers, with total freedom to appeal to his peculiar dream world. With Angelo Badalamenti in the music, of course, especially after the unforgettable soundtrack of the series.
Would you be interested in making a film for Adidas about a runner who goes from hell to heaven? That was the offer made to the director, who accepted. The commercial, one minute long and costing one million euros (unheard of at the time for the conservative German firm), of which Lynch took 200,000, has all the director’s classics, shocking and somewhat gruesome images, even with scorpions, ears, pumping blood, burning muscles, lightning, explosions (real ones too)..
In between, you can see how the shoes overcome and destroy the classic Wall that marathon runners suffer around the 30th kilometer of the race, when they do not seem to be able to continue… until you put on the tubular technology and fly
The ad broke away from what was conventional at the time, athletes and their skills, to focus on the experience, the art of the ad and the surreal feeling of surpassing oneself in an all-out effort. Groundbreaking.
However, it did not have the impact that might be expected in the US (in Europe somewhat more), nor was it much exposed, until years later the line was relaunched. The protagonist himself, Steen Davies, who was doing several commercials for Adidas at the time, remembers that it was one of the few jobs in which his family or friends did not call him to comment on it when they saw it on television. “Basically, the only thing I think I did was scream,” he once admitted, after spending hours hanging from a harness, even upside down. And he really did sweat because Lynch asked him to run for two hours to record him fatigued.
However, it did have an impact on its great rival, Nike, which took note of the style of its great rival, as Adidas’ communications director Tom Harrington, who later moved to the American firm, acknowledged. “They were scared, Adidas’ work came from an angle that they couldn’t even suspect would happen,” he says.
Nike was winning the game with very emotional ads and catching young people in the US with Air Jordans and Air Max. Adidas was doing just the opposite, so it embraced that risk and even more ads with other directors. Now it is considered a classic and a sign of how sneakers were already moving out of the sporting environment to become an object of worship.