ABOUT YOU x adidas IWD 2021

For International Women’s Day this year, ABOUT YOU commissioned The Different Folk artist Ju Schnee in their German campaign #ShareHerPower in collaboration with adidas. As a prominent contemporary artist in Germany, Ju was able to use her platform to raise awareness around International Women’s Day through a video campaign she co-created with two other German creatives. The campaign centres around sharing other women’s talents in the spirit of camaraderie rather than competition, so ABOUT YOU gave artist Ju, director Tsellot Mellesse and DJ Josi Miller the chance to show this in practice! Their combined styles make for a dynamic, intimate and electric campaign celebrating the diversity of women in Germany today - from pole dancers to boxers, all of these women love sharing each other’s power.

Seen through the lens of Tsellot we see the pride, time and thought these women put into their art. This is in stark contrast to the brilliantly bright and choppy start to the film that Ju injects her signature abstract shapes into. Beginning with a gentle, blush pink, the background morphs into neon colours and dizzying patterns. Here she creates an increasingly aggressive and busy backdrop to the introduction of these tough, intimidating women.

#ShareHerPower is particularly prescient for this year’s International Women’s Day as it explores the frictions around being a woman and a creator during the pandemic. In an already difficult industry for women, ABOUT YOU and adidas felt it was important to highlight all the ways that women are silenced and pitted against each other - oftentimes women are shown that there’s only room for one at the top. You can hear this in the all too recognisable phrases the women repeat at the start of the campaign - ‘you looked better with long hair’, ‘you’re overreacting’, ‘you should lower your standards’, ‘she’s such a slut’. With these ideas still shared amongst many, it fosters an unnecessarily competitive environment in creative women’s careers. The economic impact of the pandemic has slashed many creative and performing industry’s budgets, let alone the marketing budgets of advertisers, only exacerbating this feeling of less space for women creators to flourish. With the #ShareHerPower campaign, adidas aims to show the inspiring, hardworking and downright enjoyable side to women working together and depicting one another in a creative project.