Source: ADIDAS ORIGINALS PROPHERE
The Prophere reminds me of the Tim Duncan Commander and the Chauncey Billups Speedcut in the placement of the chunky stripes and the bulky outsole. When I look at the shoe it reminds me of other classic adidas Basketball shoes in the Bromium series where the outsole had lines that were curved as opposed to hard, straight lines. This design element that looks like the flow of water has always been appealing to me, so I really want to like the Prophere.
What’s happened here though is I’m having a difficult time overcoming my lack of excitement in the silhouette. I think the removal of the toebox in shoe design over the last year is lazy and uninspired. I discussed this in another article and it appears that I was right as consumers have let the Black Pack from adidas languish on shelves.
I explained in this article that every adidas shoe has the same silhouette and that design fatigue is beginning to set in. The colorway of a shoe can only do so much to inspire people to retire their current NMDs and add the Prophere to the list of cops. When I say I really want to like the Prophere, I do like it… but wouldn’t it be a lot better with a suede toebox design? The design element could be functional; as the biggest issue I have with the NMD is the fact that my foot slides around in the shoe like a flip flop.
adidas also has done something I’ve discussed in another article on this shoe. They understand the power of BOOST and they focused a lot of time in the molding of this midsole. The midsole of the Prophere circles which can be attributed to the study of spheres where there aren’t any straight lines, but a straightline can be mapped as the distance between two point. The rebound and cushion that can be created by the design element of spheres makes for a springy elasticity so the cushion on Prophere may be better than BOOST. I wish I had the shoe on hand, but hey… I’m making an educated guess. Like I said, the design also speaks to the decision by brands to update midsoles.
Looking at the New Balance Fresh Foam Cruz and a Design Element That Makes Simple, Dope
I noted recently that BOOST has forced designers to utilize more complex midsole designs. The days of the flat Air Force 1 side wall are gone. That retro look holds up on classic casual but for a shoe to really be successful the visual dynamics have to create an almost 3D effect effect and the Prophere does that which is why I really want to like the shoe, but when I look at it for too long I only see an NMD with fat stripes and a more supportive outsole… which isn’t bad, but ultimately like the Tubular Radial and Tubular Doom, this shoe could be doomed to sit. When I get my hand on it, maybe I’ll change my mind.
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I’m not excited about them . The only shoe that I will give a thumbs up to this year is the nb 247 . Still so underrated in My opinion
Definitely shoe of the year candidate. We need to do a shoe of the year show.
I really like the model to the point where I tried them on this past weekend. Even before trying them on however I knew I’d wait for them to be discounted before buying. Here’s the funny thing though…I have zero and I mean zero interest in the UNDFTD collab that’s about to drop and camo is one of my things.
Do you find it odd from a marketing and strategy stand point that they dropped the GR before dropping the UNDFTD? I have some thoughts on that.
When I said Shoe of the Year I was talking about the NB247 not the Prophere. I finally realized where the shape of the outsole came from… it’s the Kobe Crazy 8 feet you wear shape with that deep groove at the midfoot. You can see the inspiration for the outsole when you look at the Crazy 8. On to your thoughts… a collab doesn’t typically drop prior to a GR so that was a natural release. I do find it interesting that a collab arrived so soon after a GR. This tells me that adidas doesn’t have any confidence in this shoe. More important when the NMD arrived adidas was doing an incredible job of marketing. The NMD was placed in a subversive manner in campaigns with meaning and value.
The video campaign for the Prophere is rushed, forced, corny and the glitchy faux self created video format fails miserably. It’s also the first time in a while where adidas focused on the product vs the message. adidas’ growth happened more quickly than they prepared for and the result is that they simply aren’t taking the time to create art. The UNDFTD drop won’t pop unless it’s stupid limited. The Prophere doesn’t have a story attached and that’s a damn shame. The worst part is it’s another release from adidas with ZERO design on the toebox and I repeat that is LAZY.
I had a much longer response and should have stuck with it. I broke down the shoe in it’s entirety and where I think much of the inspiration was coming from. The KOBE 8 is the shoe I couldn’t remember off hand but knew I saw a mid similar to the Prophere before.
While you’re 100% correct that collabs largely drop before GR’s I see two things happening here. One, Adidas is losing steam fast so I thought they might have wanted to go with a strong collab (very very questionable whether it’s strong at all) first to set the tone but my thoughts on that strategy could be questionable for several reasons. If the model is strong you don’t need to start with a collab so to your point it might be telling of their lack of confidence in the model.
The other thing I see are shorter production cycles and timelines between drops.
“Adidas’ growth happened more quickly than they prepared for” – That right there. Adidas has always struggled as a brand “strategically” and they or no one had zero idea Kanye would bring this much attention to the brand. They definitely were not prepared.
Till this day Adidas doesn’t realize what they had in the Mi ZX Flux program and they just let that die a slow death while the tech and process could have been carried over to other models. We know personalization is huge for customers and why we all love exclusives even though we publicly suggest otherwise.
But what’s the next level of exclusives? Like truly exclusive? A true personalized experience.
Instead of Adidas pushing this level of customization, which would have been an organic next phase of the brands customization roadmap they just let it all slip. When I saw what Adidas offered this year as a personalization experience I knew the brands strategists still did not get it. They would have shut down NYC completely if people knew they were going to have their names, family photos, whatever they wanted…on a shoe and accessories. No. They got basic and that was the end of it.
Adidas seems to not get that if they ever hope to maintain a strong no.2 spot and climb that seemingly impossible mountain to no.1 they can’t settle for doing what other brands are doing. They should have analyzed the fact that Nike has slipped big time in the quality of many of their ID’s, the limitations they’ve imposed on designs (the shoes are now pre-made I believe…there’s nothing custom about them, which allows for the shorter ship dates) and used the Mi vehicle to push a stand out personalization process.
At the prices they offered if they gave insane material options in addition to that level of personalization and promoted it right it would align with their strategy of getting the consumer more involved, might be better for many than anything Nike ID could offer and could with the right effort make Nike’s bespoke program seem excessive. It’s already out of touch for the average consumer and Adidas could have taken advantage of that fact.
Man, I gotta ask you if you’d like to write for the site? This is almost the way I would have analyzed this. adidas failed to capitalize on the time Nike took to establish CDO and now they are trying to manage North America on what is essentially a skeleton crew. Operating adidas North America is difficult overall due to the distance from the home office. I think that is why the adjustments are so slow. Very good analysis!!!
I would be honored family. Let’s talk details when you have time, maybe after the holidays? On another note, I can’t wait to see your opinion/piece on that Adidas “calling all creators” spot that dropped today.
25 heavyweights BUT…spoiler alert/BIG question(s)…
Where was Kanye? That aside, I’m really confused by the spot. It’s supposed to be a part of an ecosystem of efforts but ends without telling me as a consumer how to “answer the call”. It just feels too self congratulatory and if you haven’t seen it yet you’ll soon see why.
Awesome. We will work out the details; shoot me an e-mail when you have time: cburns@arch-usa.com As far as the article on the New Global Campaign (Calling all Creators) it’s an extension of the ongoing creators campaign … which is why I thought Saucony made a mistake using Originators in their recent campaign for the 1000 pair made by 10 influencers (already talked about that) . The commercial is completely against everything the brand built from the previous year. The message is forced… I wish I could get to that post but this top 40 list has me painted in a corner. I’m still trying to post all of those articles and it is harder than I thought.