The Adidas Superstar Campaign With Samuel L. Jackson and Lamine Yamal

Adidas made a 93-second spot for the Superstar's spring 2026 campaign. The concept is a place called Hotel Superstar — a surreal, slightly unreal environment where Samuel L. Jackson wanders through looking for his shoes.

Along the way he runs into a stack of names: Kendall Jenner, JENNIE from BLACKPINK, Lamine Yamal, Baby Keem, James Harden, Tyshawn Jones. Each one is supposed to represent a different world the Superstar has lived in — basketball, streetwear, music, football.

The director is Thibaut Grevet, a French director known for this kind of stylized, world-building work. You can feel it in the framing.

The full campaign and the collection it's attached to live on the Adidas site. The Hypebeast breakdown has the cleanest summary of who's in it and why.

Samuel L. Jackson is 77 and still working constantly. That's part of the point. He's not a nostalgia pick — he's someone who has been continuously relevant across five decades, which is exactly what Adidas wants you to think about the Superstar shoe.

The Superstar started as a basketball shoe in 1969. It crossed into hip-hop and streetwear in the 80s, got picked up by skaters, got reissued constantly, and never fully went away. Jackson as the anchor makes sense if you buy the metaphor: someone who keeps showing up, keeps being cast, doesn't feel like a throwback even when he's been around forever.

The Rolling Out piece on Jackson's involvement puts it plainly — he's not there as a retired legend. He's there as someone still in the middle of things.

That's the casting logic. Whether it lands is a different question, but it's not random.

Lamine Yamal is 17 and the most interesting name on the list for a football audience. He's been the face of Barcelona's attack and carries a long-term Adidas partnership that was confirmed publicly last year.

He already has a personal signature logo — a mark that pulls from his neighborhood in Rocafonda and his Barcelona identity. That's not nothing for a 17-year-old. Adidas is treating him like a generational asset, not a seasonal endorsement.

He also has his own signature boot, the F50 Heartbreaker, which is separate from this campaign but part of the same brand architecture.

With the 2026 World Cup coming, Adidas is clearly positioning him as one of their central faces going into the tournament. This campaign is part of that setup — getting him in front of lifestyle and streetwear audiences, not just football ones.

The rest of the cast each cover a lane.

James Harden is there for basketball — still playing in 2026, still a recognizable name, and someone who has had a long relationship with Adidas even after things got complicated a few years back. His presence signals the shoe's original category.

JENNIE from BLACKPINK covers K-pop and global fashion. BLACKPINK were at Mad Cool in Madrid in 2026 — their reach isn't niche anymore. She brings the campaign into a market Adidas takes seriously.

Baby Keem handles the music and Gen Z hip-hop side. Tyshawn Jones is one of the most respected skateboarders alive and keeps the shoe connected to skate culture, which has been part of the Superstar's identity for decades.

The Contentgrip piece on the Gen Z Superstar strategy explains the thinking — Adidas wants the shoe to read as cross-cultural, not owned by any single scene. The cast is the argument.

The Superstar is 55 years old. That's a long time for a shoe to stay relevant without becoming a museum piece. Adidas has reissued it and recampaigned it constantly, but the challenge is always the same: how do you keep it from feeling like a heritage item that only people who remember the original care about?

This campaign's answer is casting. Put the shoe in the hands of people who are actually current — Yamal at 17, JENNIE with a global audience in the hundreds of millions, Baby Keem who released music with Kendrick — and let the Superstar borrow their now.

Adidas's stock has been doing well, and the Quartr data shows the broader business performing. The Originals line is a big part of that. Campaigns like this one are meant to sustain demand for a shoe that doesn't need to be reinvented — it just needs to stay visible to the right people.

The World Cup in 2026 is the backdrop to all of this. Yamal will be on the biggest stage in football. Adidas wants him carrying their mark into that moment.

That depends on what you want from it.

As a piece of filmmaking, the Hotel Superstar concept is well-executed. Grevet knows how to build a world in a short format, and the surreal hotel setting gives it a visual identity that's easy to screenshot and share.

As brand strategy, the casting is smart. Adidas is not pretending the Superstar is new. They're saying it belongs in the same room as the people who matter right now. That's a different argument, and a more honest one.

The risk is the same risk every multi-celebrity campaign runs: too many faces, no single story. You remember Samuel L. Jackson looking for his shoes. You might remember Yamal or JENNIE if you already know who they are. Whether a 16-year-old who doesn't follow football or K-pop comes away with any feeling about the shoe — that's harder to say.

But Adidas isn't really making this ad for people who don't know these names. They're making it for people who know all of them and want to see them in the same room. For that audience, it works.