What to do when Farage adopts your fashion

So what should Adidas do when Farage starts wearing the brand loud and proud?

Last week, pantomime baddy Rishi Sunak made an Instagram video to say something. None of us know what because the whole thing was utterly derailed by the fact he was kitted out in the shoe of the summer, the Adidas Samba.

The natural evolution of this was for Nigel Farage to unload an uncool rifle into Adidas’s other most famous shoe: the Gazelle. And just like Bambi’s mum, the sneaker was dead.

• Three stripes and you’re out: the sorry story of Sunak’s Sambas

His actual content was some asinine deer turd about Nike being too “woke” and “politically correct” I can only assume because Nike added some colors on the England flag recently, getting armchair rainbow hunters up in arms.

It was a trope so haggard and tired now that even the most mouth-foaming conspiracist doesn’t care anymore.

Social media users recoiled in both horror and delight – eager to jokingly (although probably very authentically) denounce their ownership of the Adi classic.

For brands, being undesirably co-opted is not a new problem.

Proud Boys and some racist cells of the skinhead movement had their fingerprints all over Fred Perry for decades. Dr Martens too – although primarily with white laces – were once an icon for Neo-nazis. Even Hugo Boss famously did the SS uniforms, and when my grandma was alive, she used to lament the success of VW – a car initially designed from the wheels up as a nazi-mobile.

And who can forget New Balance’s brief and bizarre foray into openly supporting Trump, to which some well-adjusted right-wing Americans responded in dogged support by burning their Nikes live on their social channels.

So, how should Adidas deal with this?

If we’re honest, a “new phone who dis” strategy of ignoring it until it goes away probably won’t cut it.

People like Farage really do need standing up against. I suppose we run the risk of giving him more oxygen and fanning his flames as he stumbles front and center into the inevitable Tory party leadership. But I’d rather see these skid marks held up to the light of day instead of misrepresented in the Truth Social echo chambers where the loudest wet farts get rapturous rounds of applause.

There’s little to choose from, but a personal favorite of mine was the Burger King UK approach. Farage meandered across the imaginary border into Newcastle, he was pelted with various milkshakes in a concerted effort to push him back down to wherever he had crawled out from. And Burger King, of all brands, had a take, before his Scotland visit.

Controversial? A bit. Against ASA rules? A lot, it turns out. But morally correct? Definitely. These people understand little other than a hardline approach.

As a brand, if you’re going to “play in culture” or stand for the representation of marginalized groups, which most brands say they are, then you need to be prepared to put your money where your mouth is. Or your shoes where your feet are.

I’d love to see a world where Adidas came out guns blazing against the far-right. It wouldn’t be for the first time. It’s why it blocked the number 44 appearing on its German football shirts, favored by neo-nazi groups using “88” and “44”. And it’s why it dumped Kanye West after his antisemitic rants grew – a smart move that myself and other Jews in the industry truly appreciated.

This is dog-whistle stuff wrapped in a fun engagement bait format designed to ruffle feathers on both the left and the right. Still, ultimately, it’s something that Adidas should denounce, belittle and crush under the weight of the frankly beautiful cultural footprint it worked so hard to cultivate.