adidas | BigXthaPlug

adidas Originals came back to Dallas for the first time in 15 years. The brand was returning to a place it left, dropped into a mall with money but no cultural credibility. My job was never to sell a sneaker. It was to earn the right to be there.

I made the call early to throw a State Fair instead of a store opening. Dallas and the fair are inseparable. I brought it inside with BigXthaPlug as the anchor. Every decision I made got tested against one question: would Dallas feel like this store was built for them, or at them.

I put BigXthaPlug at the door as Big Tex, larger than life so you knew whose city you'd walked into. Ring toss, Hi-Striker, a DJ, food, a photo moments people took home in a branded frame. And we parked a candy slab right outside of it with its trunk packed full of XLG, because that car explains itself and Dallas posts it before the brand ever gets to.

The whole thing ran on one idea. A brand selling to a city and a brand belonging to one are separated only by the details. The president of adidas, BigXthaPlug and his camp, Corey Seager from the Texas Rangers, a successful local football team with the city watching. Our team was the one holding the vision together so all of it landed as a single thing, and so that when Dallas showed up, it showed up as itself.