Snickers and adidas have taken one of the most literal routes possible to a sportswear collaboration: turn the shoe into the product.
Their first-ever American football cleat partnership transforms the adidas ADIZERO ELECTRIC + II into something that looks suspiciously like a Snickers bar, just in time for football season and Halloween. The limited-edition cleat launched October 10 in the U.S. for $180.
From Chocolate Bar To Football Cleat
The design does most of the storytelling.
A chocolate-brown upper references the bar’s coating, while lighter suede-like adidas stripes evoke nougat. “ADIZERO” appears underneath in typography inspired by the Snickers logo, “Go Nuts” wraps around the heel, and a small Snickers “S” sits on the laces.
Then comes the Halloween layer.
Hidden inside is a fluorescent “Ghoulish Green” insole, connecting the shoe to Snickers’ seasonal candy release. The collaboration also extends back into the snack aisle with limited-edition Snickers x adidas bars distributed through a sweepstakes.
That makes the collaboration feel more complete than simply putting two logos on the same object. Each brand has been translated into the other’s world.
The Best Collaborations Are Easy To Understand
There is nothing complicated about the idea, and that is probably why it works.
Snickers already owns distinctive visual codes: chocolate brown, nougat, peanuts, the red-white-and-blue wordmark. adidas already has a performance product with a recognizable silhouette.
The creative move is simply to ask what happens when one brand becomes the material language of the other.
NFL rookie Carnell Tate fronts the rollout, giving the product a credible place on the field rather than leaving it as a novelty fashion object. But the concept is simple enough that you understand it before you ever see the athlete.
A lot of brand collaborations try to manufacture surprise by combining two unexpected names.
This one finds the surprise in execution.
Snickers did not just put its logo on an adidas cleat.
It made the cleat look edible.
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