How adidas Made the Case for Training Through Winter in 2014
adidas launched "Open All Winter" in the United Kingdom in November 2014, a film-led campaign built around the Climaheat winter apparel range, designed to challenge the common perception that cold weather is a reason to stop training outdoors.
The campaign centres on a single-film asset directed by Stian Smestad and produced by Stopp, featuring three extreme-sport athletes performing at altitude and in freezing conditions: slackliner Hayley Ashburn, paraglider Jean-Baptiste Chandelier, and ice climber Junhee Han. Each athlete is shown not merely enduring winter but demanding it, treating harsh environments as the optimal arena for performance rather than an obstacle to it. The creative positions the Climaheat range as the technical enabler of that philosophy, present in the action without overwhelming it.
Beyond the film, the campaign extends into a social media activation anchored by the hashtag #openallwinter across Instagram and Twitter. The structure invites the public to share their own winter outdoor photography for a chance to win weekly prizes across a twelve-week competition window, with a grand prize winter road trip offered at the campaign's close, as reported by shots.net and Little Black Book. This participation mechanic transforms passive viewers into active brand ambassadors, extending the campaign's reach well beyond its paid media footprint.
In the United Kingdom, where damp, grey winters reliably suppress outdoor participation, the campaign carries particular strategic weight. By anchoring the message to athletes operating in genuinely extreme cold — not stylised studio winter — adidas signals that Climaheat is built for real conditions, not aspirational ones. The campaign earns a Clapboard Score of 58 out of 100, reflecting solid craft and a clear strategic proposition, with room to have pushed the social activation further into measurable cultural territory.
adidas built "Open All Winter" on a durable consumer insight: that the barrier to winter training is psychological as much as physical, and that the right product, demonstrated by the right athletes in the right conditions, can dismantle that hesitation. The campaign does not ask consumers to imagine being warm. It shows athletes for whom cold is a chosen environment, making warmth a performance tool rather than a comfort luxury.
The United Kingdom presents a specific strategic context for this message. British winters are characterised by sustained cold, rain, and limited daylight — conditions that reliably push recreational athletes indoors. adidas's choice to launch in November 2014, as conditions deteriorate, is deliberate timing designed to intercept the moment when consumers are deciding whether outdoor activity is worth continuing.
The competitive landscape in 2014 makes the positioning consequential. Nike held approximately 14.6 to 17 percent of global sportswear market share that year, with revenues of around 25 billion US dollars, according to data cited by reuters.com and arabnews.com. adidas Group, by comparison, held approximately 11.4 to 12 percent global market share, with group revenue reported at approximately 14.5 billion euros for the prior year, per the adidas Group annual report. The North Face, operating under VF Corporation, competed directly in the premium winter-performance outerwear space and held meaningful mindshare among the outdoor and extreme-sport communities that adidas was explicitly targeting with Climaheat.
Rather than competing on warmth ratings or technical specifications alone, adidas chose to compete on attitude — a brand-level move that places Climaheat alongside lifestyle and identity rather than simply function. The extreme-sport casting reinforces this, associating the range with people for whom winter is a destination, not a deterrent.
Stian Smestad directed "Open All Winter" for adidas, with Stopp serving as the production company. The film deploys three athletes across three distinct extreme disciplines — slacklining, paragliding, and ice climbing — each demanding not only skill but a physical commitment to cold, exposed environments that most audiences will never personally access.
Shots magazine, in a review published on 5 November 2014, described the campaign as "adrenaline-fuelled," citing the extreme-sports casting, the harsh winter conditions on screen, and the deliberate contrast between the severity of the environments and the composure of the athletes within them. That composure is the creative argument: Hayley Ashburn, Jean-Baptiste Chandelier, and Junhee Han are not shown suffering. They are shown excelling, which reframes winter from a problem into a proving ground.
The cinematography leans into natural light and real environments, avoiding the over-produced aesthetic that can make technical apparel campaigns feel more catalogue than conviction. The choice to shoot in genuinely extreme conditions — which is consistent with how the athletes were selected and presented, as documented by lbbonline.com — gives the film a texture and physicality that studio production cannot replicate. Breath visible in cold air, the specific quality of alpine and icy light, and the altitude-induced silence between cuts all serve the product story without the film needing to state it directly.
The hashtag activation, structured as a twelve-week weekly competition, was designed to run alongside the film rather than as a separate campaign layer. By asking everyday athletes to contribute winter photography using #openallwinter, the creative team extended the visual language of the film into user-generated content, creating a feedback loop between elite performance and mass participation that is structurally effective even without documented reach figures.
No verified performance data for "Open All Winter" is publicly available in terms of view counts, conversion metrics, or campaign-specific sales uplift for the Climaheat range in the United Kingdom. The absence of published figures is not unusual for a 2014 brand campaign, particularly one for which the primary media asset was a single film supported by earned social participation.
Structural analysis suggests the campaign was well-designed to achieve its probable objectives. The film provides a shareable, emotionally resonant anchor that earns attention through spectacle rather than paid interruption. The twelve-week weekly prize structure, as reported by shots.net, gives the hashtag activation a reason to sustain engagement across the full winter season rather than spiking at launch and fading. This architecture is consistent with a brand intent on maintaining top-of-mind relevance during the precise period when Climaheat purchases would be considered.
The selection of athletes operating in genuinely obscure disciplines — slacklining, paragliding, ice climbing — rather than mainstream winter sports such as skiing or snowboarding is a deliberate creative choice that earns coverage in specialist media without alienating a broader audience. As noted by lbbonline.com and shots.net in contemporaneous coverage, the campaign generated positive trade press reception, which amplifies earned reach beyond the paid film placement.
The Clapboard Score of 58 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its creative strategy with competence and genuine craft, while leaving headroom in areas of measurable social mobilisation and cross-channel integration that more ambitious campaigns of the same era exploited more fully.
adidas launched Open All Winter in the United Kingdom in November 2014. The campaign promoted the Climaheat winter apparel range through a film directed by Stian Smestad and produced by Stopp, featuring three extreme-sport athletes performing in harsh winter conditions alongside a twelve-week social media competition using the hashtag #openallwinter.
Stian Smestad directed the Open All Winter film for adidas. Stopp served as the production company. The film featured slackliner Hayley Ashburn, paraglider Jean-Baptiste Chandelier, and ice climber Junhee Han, each performing in extreme winter environments to demonstrate the performance credentials of the adidas Climaheat range.
Three extreme-sport athletes appeared in the Open All Winter campaign. Hayley Ashburn represented slacklining, Jean-Baptiste Chandelier represented paragliding, and Junhee Han represented ice climbing. Their selection placed adidas Climaheat within genuinely demanding winter disciplines rather than mainstream winter sports, reinforcing the range's performance positioning in the United Kingdom market.
adidas invited the public to share winter outdoor photography using the hashtag #openallwinter on Instagram and Twitter. Weekly winners were selected across a twelve-week competition window, with a grand prize winter road trip awarded at the campaign's conclusion, as reported by shots.net and lbbonline.com. The structure sustained engagement across the full UK winter season.
Open All Winter promoted the adidas Climaheat winter apparel range. Climaheat is a technical performance line designed for cold-weather outdoor activity. The campaign, launched in the United Kingdom in November 2014, positioned Climaheat as the enabling technology for athletes who treat winter conditions as a preferred environment rather than an obstacle to training.
The adidas Open All Winter campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 58 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative craft and a clear strategic proposition anchored in the Climaheat product range, while identifying headroom in measurable social mobilisation and cross-channel integration that comparable motivational sports campaigns of 2014 pursued more extensively.
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