Good Advertising: Anthony Edwards 

If you follow modern NBA basketball you know the name Anthony Edwards, due to his budding stardom, electric athleticism, and most importantly his personality built around his swagger and confidence. Edwards consistently churns out sound bites, viral videos, and has been adopted by the basketball community for his embodiment of the next era of the NBA. Understanding Edwards’ personality is imperative to comprehending why his ad campaign for his new signature basketball shoe, the AE 1, is a great ad. 

Anthony Edwards has a certain gravitational pull to his personality, so when it came time to advertise his new shoe by Adidas, the ads decided to put Edwards and his personality front and center. I chose this specific ad from the rest of the campaign because it embodies Edwards’ energy the most. A couple of things in this ad are consistent factors throughout the campaign, including the orange void as the setting, Edwards appearing alongside a friend, and the slogan. 

The first noticeably great aspect of this ad is its simplicity. The orange void is a simple yet eye-catching setting that draws attention to the shoes and dynamic between the two characters in the video. By being colorful enough for the audience to pay attention while not being too busy in the background to be distracting, the simplicity shines and highlights the character dynamic which works. The ad focuses on a conversation, and it isn’t until after the conversation that the name and logo appear, once again putting the characters first in the story. Through simplicity, the characters carry the story, creating an emotional attachment to the star and the thing he cares about, which is his new pair of shoes.

In my opinion, this ad is effective because it knows its audience. As someone who grew up in Atlanta basketball culture, and played against the same high school teams and at the same AAU tournaments as he did, I view Edwards as a familiar product of the modern AAU basketball culture that I grew up in. This familiar nature to Edwards provides an appeal to his unfiltered personality and the ad successfully channels this energy and truly feels real while also playing to the grandness of Edwards’ “swag”. Utilizing and elevating Anthony Edwards the character plays perfectly to the audience, who are high schoolers and hoopers of all ages. By adopting the culture and attitude of the current group of middle and high school basketball players through the use of Edwards, Adidas successfully plays to their audience in a way that signals that this shoe is from hoopers for hoopers. 

Overall, all the praises for this ad can be defined by its commitment to authenticity. The ad demonstrates authenticity through its use of bleeping, dissing of other brands’ and players' shoes, and the slogan for the overall campaign “Believe That” being said by the athlete himself in the true way he would deliver any of his quotable lines. At no point in the ad do you feel as if you are being catered to by Adidas, the major corporation, but rather, you feel as if this is just an authentic moment with Anthony Edwards the person. The advertisement is a statement claiming the shoe is above other notable basketball shoes similar to the way Edwards confidently states his opinions with no fear. The ad is authentic to Anthony Edwards the person and through the utilization of his personality, the ad successfully captures a public figure’s energy in a bottle correlating all the things the basketball audience loves about the player with his shoes.