The internet has erupted with excitement after the latest teaser of Beyoncé’s Ivy Park partnership with Adidas rolled out overnight. In less than 24 hours, nearly 7.5 million Instagram users viewed a video montage posted to the entertainer’s account, highlighting her Netflix “Homecoming” special, filmed at the Coachella festival last year, along with pockets of Three Stripes branding and nods to the collaboration in the clips.
The entertainer followed up the video with three images today where she’s seen modeling a red Adidas bodysuit surrounded by the brand’s sneakers. The combined likes of the posts scored well over 7 million, too.
Welcome to the Beyoncé experience.
The partnership, announced April 4, relaunches the global superstar’s Ivy Park athleisure label with apparel, footwear and lifestyle products. Ivy Park debuted in 2016 with Arcadia Group chairman Philip Green, and now with Adidas tapping the cache that comes with Beyoncé’s name, the sportswear powerhouse hopes that it is positioned to repeat its success when it launched Kanye West’s Yeezy line in 2015.
The strategy includes a relationship much like Yeezy, existing outside of Adidas categories as a standalone label, according to a brand executive. And expect the Beyoncé narrative to be about style and substance — with a message of empowering girls, breaking cultural barriers and more.
Speaking to FN during a previous interview, the representative said that the Three Stripes see Beyoncé as the next big success like its high-profile collaborators Kanye West and Pharrell.
“It’s nice to have someone from a female lens to push the brand in that space,” the representative added. “I know she has two big ambitions — one is more on the philanthropic side of things; we’ve pushed a lot into the world of girls in sports, and she aligns with that. I think that’s one of the reasons she was attracted to our brand.”
In a previously released statement, Beyoncé called her alignment with Adidas the “partnership of a lifetime for me.“
“We share a philosophy that puts creativity, growth and social responsibility at the forefront of business,” she explained. “I look forward to relaunching and expanding Ivy Park on a truly global scale with a proven, dynamic leader.”
No doubt Beyoncé’s appeal will resonate with millennials like Yeezy and Pharrell’s products. The executive added that their influence has been “impactful” to the brand’s creative initiatives. “[West] has pushed us to the edges and a lot of times to places we have never gone from a design or ethos standpoint.”
The Germany-based sportswear giant has seen great success with Yeezy since they debuted their first shoe, the Yeezy 750 Boost (the Adidas Yeezy Boost was named FN’s Shoe of the Year in 2015).
Adidas’ fourth-quarter earnings saw sales rise 3.5 percent to 5.23 billion euros ($5.91 billion) and profits increase 29 percent to 93 million euros.
For the full year, revenues grew 3.3 percent to 21.91 billion euros, and net income increased 19.5 percent to 1.7 billion euros. Kasper Rorsted, CEO, cited Yeezy as part of its success and future in an interview with Bloomberg.
“While [Yeezy product is] important from the business standpoint, it’s really important from a brand-building standpoint,” Rorsted said. “Kanye is not an American brand; Kanye is a global brand, and Yeezy is a global brand, so we’re looking upon it as a brand driver more than a business driver for us, and that will be the case also for 2019.”
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