Adidas–Bella Hadid Olympics Campaign Controversy: Everything to Know

Adidas is continuing to navigate the fallout from its latest marketing campaign fiasco: its SL 72 shoe campaign, which first launched in March.

Last week, the retailer faced major backlash over the campaign related to the 1972 Olympics in Munich—the same Games where 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were taken hostage and killed during an attack by Palestinian terrorist organization Black September. Adidas chose Palestinian model Bella Hadid, a sharp critic of Israel, as one of the campaign’s spokespeople.

The episode adds to a long history of tensions between the 75-year-old German brand and the Jewish community.

The company acknowledged its mistake Thursday afternoon after facing criticism from American and Israeli Jewish voices on social media, including the American Jewish Council and the State of Israel’s official X account. 

“The adidas Originals SL72 campaign unites a broad range of partners to celebrate our lightweight running shoe, designed more than 50 years ago and worn in sport and culture around the world,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Front Office Sports and others on Thursday. “We are conscious that connections have been made to tragic historical events—though these are completely unintentional—and we apologise for any upset or distress caused.” Adidas said it would “revise” the rest of the campaign, which had included a billboard in Times Square, as well as several social media posts.

The company did not respond to a question from FOS asking how exactly the campaign would be revised. The SL 72 shoe line is still for sale, but Adidas has since deleted the social media posts for the campaign that featured Hadid.

Hadid has hired lawyers to potentially sue Adidas over the fallout from the campaign, according to multiple reports, and is displeased that she was placed in a campaign associating her with a terrorist attack. “Violence is not consistent with Bella’s views,” a source told US Weekly. She did, however, previously promote the campaign on her own Instagram.

It is unclear whether Hadid has been completely dropped for the campaign, and Adidas did not answer an FOS question about Hadid’s current status with the company. A spokesperson only referred to a statement released Sunday on the Adidas Originals Instagram account, apologizing “to our partners,” including Hadid, “for any negative impact on them” as a result of their likenesses being used in SL 72 advertisements. 

The SL 72 faux pas is just the latest in Adidas’s long history of controversies targeting the Jewish community. The company has been plagued with antisemitism since its earliest days: Brothers Adolf (“Adi”) and Rudolf Dassler, who founded the company in Herzogenaurach, Germany, both joined the Nazi party in 1933, remained members throughout WWII, and were accused of varying activities aiding the German war effort.

Almost a century later, Adidas is still blundering. In 2022, the company was criticized for how long it took to cut ties with Ye (formerly Kanye West) after he went on multiple antisemitic rants. And this spring, the brand had to redesign German soccer jerseys after critics pointed out that No. 44 looked too similar to the logo of the Schutzstaffel (“SS”), the Nazis’ elite paramilitary organization. 

In its statement on Thursday, however, Adidas assured consumers that it harbors no hateful views. “We believe in sport as a unifying force around the world and will continue our efforts to champion diversity and equality in everything we do.”