Brief:

• Adidas sold out of a new style of shoe featured on a new Snapchat show called "Fashion 5 Ways," according to Adweek. The maker of athletic apparel was the first brand to launch a product on a Snapchat show that was integrated with mobile commerce support, per Footwear News.​
• Snapchat let viewers of the show swipe up on their smartphone screens to buy a pre-release of the Falcon W sneaker that fulfillment company Darkstore will deliver to customers by Sept. 6. Shopify provided the e-commerce technology to handle the orders. Thumb Candy Media produces "Fashion 5 Ways" and "Nail the Look," another Snapchat show.
• Adidas declined to say how many shoes it sold, while a Snapchat spokesperson said "millions" of viewers watched the episode of "Fashion 5 Ways," per Adweek. About three-quarters (70%) of the audience was women ages 13 to 24. Adidas soon will sell the Falcon W shoe to all customers at the same price of $100.

Insight:

This Adidas shoe sale again demonstrates Snapchat's power in generating social commerce, especially for exclusive offers that appeal to a brand's hardcore fans. The Adidas promotion was novel for combining shoe sales with a Snapchat show, unlike Snapchat's partnership with Nike and Air Jordan that sold shoes with a customized augmented reality (AR) lens and QR code and also quickly sold out. Attendees of a Nike party after the NBA All-Star game on Feb. 18 could scan exclusive Snap codes to open the app and buy the sneakers for same-day delivery.

Adidas sought to reach a younger, female audience with the promotion as part of its goal to encourage social media chatter about the sneaker, per Adweek. Adidas already has the distinction of having the most-shared logo on social media, according to a ranking by researcher Brandwatch that placed the sportswear brand ahead of Nike, Puma and Under Armour. The Adidas logo appears in 6.5 million images shared on Twitter and Instagram each month. Reality TV star and cosmetics entrepreneur Kylie Jenner this month became the latest brand ambassador for Adidas, per Footwear News. Her second Instagram picture of herself wearing the brand received more than 5.3 million likes and about 46,000 comments. Adidas, whose sales last year rose 16% to $25.4 billion, aims to expand its online presence while driving sales gains of 10-12% a year by 2020, per the Financial Times.

For Snapchat, the Adidas promotion is another indication that the company is seeking more ways to monetize its content and relationships with its 188 million users. The company this year has struggled with a declining user base amid a redesign of its app and growing competition from Facebook's Instagram, which has copied Snapchat features to appeal to a wider audience. If the Adidas and Nike sales are any indication, social commerce may become an important source of revenue — either from advertising or commissions — for Snapchat parent company Snap.