David Pullara

Mar 31, 20211 min

ADdicted: Being Green

Apparently, the reason Disney's Kermit the Frog is a fit with Adidas' new, more sustainable Stan Smith line of shoes can be summed up in one word: green.

Wait, what?

If you needed a better explanation (as I did), the Adidas website isn't much help:

To be clear, I love both Disney and Adidas as brands.

But that rationale as to why Kermit is an appropriate spokesperson for a sustainable line from Adidas smells like Oscar's trash can.

Is this initiative fun? Absolutely!

But why pretend it's about anything other than fun? (Or about the money Adidas will make from selling cool Kermit gear, and the money Disney will make from licensing the image of everybody's favourite frog?)

And if Adidas truly believes that Kermit is a good spokesperson for all things "green", then how do you explain these other "coming soon" items, which don't appear to have any particular "environmental" aspects at all? (Heck, they're all more "white" than "green"!)

Sometimes a frog is just a frog.

And that's perfectly okay. There's no need to try and convince your customers otherwise.

Still, the 10-second ad to support this initiative made me laugh out loud:

I'm not sure why I was so surprised to see Kermit eat a fly: I mean, he's a frog, what else would he eat? But as Miss Piggy would undoubtedly say, "Bon appetite, Kermee!"