We’ve put so much pressure on achievement in sport. Adidas wants to restore the joy of it. So the brand has begun a global content series, #YouGotThis, that asks, What if we Played Like Pressure Didn’t Exist? The series was triggered by feedback and insights collected from people around the world showing that for many people, negative pressure can affect their enjoyment of sport To build the series, worked with neuro11, a group of sport neuroscientists, to fully understand how elite athletes manage pressure so that it could provide usable guidance.
#YouGotThis, created by TBWA, We Are Social and the Sphere’s creative team, kicked off two weeks ago with a film featuring Pat Mahomes, Trinity Rodman, Lionel Messi, Linda Caicedo, Jude Bellingham, Anthony Edwards, Rohit Sharma, and the New Zealand Rugby All Blacks, that celebrated athletes dealing with pressure
It continues now with three social films directed by Prettybird’s Jess Kohl, featuring young athletes. The work explores what happens when we remove the pressure and make games that are solely about having fun. Each film shows professional athletes experiencing sport in a new way by surprising them with twists on traditional sporting environments – a triangular football pitch in London, double-size tennis court in Japan, and 6-metre high basketball hoop in Minneapolis – and inviting local kids to join them on the courts.
Footballers, Gabriel Martinelli, Catarina Macario, Mia Fishel and Andreas Pereira take on The Football Triangle in one film. Basketball hero, Anthony Edwards takes on The 20 Foot Hoop in another. The tennis film will be released on March 4.
The overall creative concept is to reimagine the spaces where people play sports, with the intention of taking the pressure off and creating environments where players can just have fun and remember why they fell in love with the sport in the first place.
Director and photographer, Jess Kohl, has directed commercial work for global brands including Google, Carhartt and WhatsApp, and made a name for herself as a unique director of inspirational campaigns for sports-centred brands including Nike, Speedo and On Running.
Jess Kohl has a special interest in underrepresented voices. Her curiosity to document and celebrate the fringes of society has led to stories about marginalised groups such as Punks in the Philippines and transgender communities in Central India. Kohl’s award-winning short films include A Mouthful of Petrol, a coming-of-age documentary following a father and son who share a passion for banger racing, which won the Golden Frog for Best Documentary Short at Camerimage and premiered at IDFA. In 2019, she won Best Director and Best Documentary at the Milan Fashion Film Festival for Nirvana, a short film about the Koovagam Festival, the largest gathering of transgender women in Asia. Kohl’s films, Disciples and Anarchy in the Philippines have also been nominated for numerous awards, including the Grierson.
