Thinking outside the (shoe) box, have we been played over Bella Hadid and Adidas?

I gather Bella Hadid is “consulting lawyers” with a view to legal action against Adidas for dropping her from its campaign – you know, the tone-deaf one where a Palestinian model advertises a “retro” sneaker from the Munich Olympics that is most remembered for a murderous terror attack by Palestinians which left 11 Israeli athletes dead.

Her Instagram page makes it perfectly clear how committed she is to the Palestinian cause, and therefore how unimaginably stupid it was for Adidas to have chosen her for this campaign in the first place, not to mention how unimaginably stupid it was for Adidas to launch a “retro” line from the ’72 Olympic Games without taking into account that these Games are most remembered for a murderous terror attack.

While I realise most of people working in the Adidas marketing department were almost certainly infants in 1972, or not even born, that’s hardly an excuse. The first page of any internet search of “1972 Olympic Games” – and probably all following pages – would have unrelentingly recalled the terror attack, (at least  until last week’s furore over Hadid overtook it.) And then, of course, there was Steven Spielberg’s film, Munich, which though not one of his best, hardly went unnoticed when it was released in 2005.

Which brings me inescapably to consider the possibility that it was not necessarily unimaginably stupid and that perhaps you, me and Bella have all been played.

While, hopefully, I do not sound like a conspiracy theorist, I can’t help wondering if we have all unwittingly participated in a huge promotional campaign for a sportswear company that may have been losing its hold in the top rung of sportswear sales. I have no evidence – this is only a hunch – but it is clear that not only its original competitors such as Nike, Reebok, New Balance and Converse seem to be catching up or overtaking, but new specialist sportswear brands such as On and Under Armour are also powering ahead.

And if we also consider the impact of the  fashion trainers – which of course account for a large chunk of the sneaker/trainer market – we  must also include brands such as Veja, Onitsuka and Madewell, plus niche brands such as Stepney Workers Club and also the (insanely expensive) premium designer brands such as Gucci, Dior et al

If all of these are biting into sales, the marketing people might have need to think, er, outside the (shoe) box. And if they believe the old adage about any publicity being “good publicity,” well why not aim to have your brand splashed across media and social media. And if you wanted to achieve that, you would need something so sensitive and so outrageously controversial to trigger a firestorm.

Hmm, now I wonder what that might be?