Offspring’s King’s Cross store is taken over by the iconic Adidas' Originals brand

Adidas Originals’ experiential Offspring takeover signals the power of ‘world building’ retail.

The ‘high street within a store’ concept features a newsagent, where you can pick up a magazine with Community member's faces in it or grab a can of sparkling water, an in-house florist and even a television repair shop where you can view some of the iconic Adidas adverts of the past.

There’s also a handy Trefoil bench to rest on – should you purchase a pair of Adidas – you’ll receive a commemorative ‘Offspring coin’: the uses for which are yet to be revealed.

The Offspring/Adidas collaboration ticks the following connection cornerstones of nostalgia, visual stimulation, social media friendly opportunities, take-home momentos and incentives for loyalty.

Our take

As recently stated by Material Good co-founder, Rob Ronen on the Glossy podcast, in-store experiential is not about sales, but about brand building. It’s an important point for brands looking to effectively use the high street, given the competition from online retail.

What good experiential exploits so successfully is the power of the live experience. In this case, a boldly-branded call back to a bygone era plays to consumer nostalgia, and the Originals brand heritage.

The high street, despite suffering from online sales, has welcomed a post-Covid reversal, especially when it comes to fashion. Retailers such as Asos, Boohoo, Sosandar and Zalando all saw sales skyrocket in 2020-2021, but, Asos shares have since fallen from their £57 peak in 2021 to £3.80, while Boohoo is below its 2014 IPO price.

Reinvention is still vital, however, and – let’s face it – a lot of us use stores to window shop with a view to making a future online purchase. Experiential experiments like this Offspring/Adidas collaboration are far more memorable than your run-of-the-mill jaunt through endless unimaginative concessions in your local shopping arcade.