Mizuno WaveKnit String Ads Turned Running Routes Into Art
Mizuno's WaveKnit String Ads is a 2018 Brazilian print and design campaign by Moma Propaganda, São Paulo, that translated the knitted construction of the Mizuno WaveKnit running shoe into hand-built string art maps depicting real running routes across three major Brazilian cities, earning a Bronze Lion in Print and Publishing at Cannes Lions 2018.
Published in June 2018, the campaign launched in Brazil to support the introduction of the WaveKnit running shoe — a product defined by its seamlessly knitted upper. The central creative proposition was conceptual integrity: the medium would mirror the product. Where the shoe was constructed from interlocking thread, the advertising would itself be constructed from thread. Moma Propaganda executed this not through digital simulation but through a physically demanding, handcrafted process that required more than 300 hours of labour, according to reporting cited by Clapboard. The resulting artworks incorporated more than 5,000 meters of coloured string, over 6,500 nails, and represented more than 8,000 kilometres of streets and avenues, per Clapboard's editorial documentation.
In Brazil, the campaign targeted active consumers — runners and athletic footwear buyers in major metropolitan centres including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, and Curitiba, as documented in a Millward Brown consumer study published July 2, 2018. The geographic specificity was not incidental: each string art composition mapped actual running circuits and street networks from Brazilian cities that host prominent running events, grounding an aesthetically ambitious campaign in recognisable local geography. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 72 out of 100, reflecting strong creative originality and craft distinction within the 2018 Brazilian advertising landscape.
Mizuno positioned the WaveKnit String Ads campaign as a deliberate departure from the dominant conventions of athletic footwear advertising in Brazil. The strategy prioritised what the creative team described, as reported by Clapboard, as a beautiful campaign with powerful art direction for outdoor ads and points of sale, explicitly designed to differentiate from competitors' reliance on flashy production and celebrity athlete endorsements. In a category where Nike — which held approximately 41% of the broad global sportswear market in 2018, according to brandminds.com — and Adidas, with approximately 22% of the same market per brandminds.com, commanded attention through high-budget athlete partnerships, Mizuno's approach was quieter, craftier, and more product-rooted.
Mizuno occupies a specialist performance positioning in the global running shoe market, distinct from the mass-market scale of Nike and Adidas. In Brazil, a market with a deeply embedded running culture and a robust calendar of urban racing events, this positioning carried particular strategic weight. The Millward Brown consumer study, published July 2, 2018, sampled men and women aged 14 to 45 from ABC socioeconomic classes who had purchased athletic shoes in the previous 12 months and participated in sport — a tightly defined audience that reflects the aspirational, performance-oriented Brazilian runner Mizuno sought to reach. Research was conducted through in-person interviews across seven Brazilian cities, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte, giving the study strong geographic coverage of the country's key urban running communities.
The decision to anchor the campaign's visual language in the topography of Brazilian running routes further reinforced Mizuno's local relevance. Rather than importing a global creative concept, Moma Propaganda built the campaign from the streets Brazilian runners actually use, embedding the brand inside a specifically Brazilian athletic experience.
Pict Estúdio collaborated on the production of the hand-built string art installations at the centre of the WaveKnit campaign. The creative team at Moma Propaganda, led by Creative Director Rodolfo Sampaio, began by analysing maps and running tracks across three major Brazilian cities that host prominent running circuits. Art Directors Guilherme Martins and Jorge Yoshida, alongside Copywriter Daniel Bensusan, then re-drew and stylised those maps so that streets, avenues, and running paths formed a unified visual composition that could be faithfully recreated in thread, as documented by Clapboard.
The physical construction of each piece required placing more than 6,500 nails into boards and then weaving more than 5,000 meters of coloured string between them, per reporting by both Clapboard and Maniadecorrida Com Br. Five distinct thread textures were used across the works, a detail that directly echoed the multi-yarn construction of the WaveKnit shoe's upper. The process consumed more than 300 hours of skilled handcraft labour, according to Clapboard. The result was a set of print and outdoor executions — and point-of-sale materials — in which the aesthetic logic of the advertising and the engineering logic of the product were inseparable.
As reported by trendhunter.com, the campaign's technique was noted for its conceptual coherence: the string art did not merely illustrate the shoe but replicated its method of construction at an architectural scale. The five thread textures that formed the map compositions corresponded directly to the layered knit zones of the WaveKnit upper, meaning that a viewer familiar with the shoe's design would recognise the visual grammar of the advertising as an extension of the product itself. This level of craft-concept alignment is rare in the athletic footwear category and was a primary driver of the campaign's recognition at Cannes Lions 2018.
Mizuno's WaveKnit String Ads won a Bronze Lion in Print and Publishing at Cannes Lions 2018, awarded to Moma Propaganda, São Paulo, as confirmed by Clapboard's awards documentation. This represents one of the most significant international creative honours awarded to a Brazilian athletic footwear campaign in the 2018 cycle, and places the work among a small group of print campaigns from Brazil recognised at Cannes that year.
The Millward Brown consumer study published July 2, 2018, evaluated the campaign across a sample of active shoe purchasers in seven Brazilian cities. The report stated that the campaign was well evaluated by consumers, though no numeric performance metrics were disclosed publicly. No further verified sales, reach, or engagement data for the WaveKnit String Ads campaign is publicly available beyond this characterisation.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on several reinforcing factors. The conceptual link between product construction and advertising medium creates an unusually tight message-product fit that requires minimal explanatory copy. The use of real Brazilian running routes as compositional source material generates immediate local recognition among the campaign's target audience of urban runners. The handcrafted production method signals a level of investment and attention that implicitly communicates the craftsmanship values of the WaveKnit shoe itself. Taken together, these elements produced a campaign that resonated with both a specialist consumer jury at Cannes and the Brazilian athletic consumer audiences studied by Millward Brown. The Clapboard Score of 72 out of 100 reflects the campaign's strong creative originality, though the absence of disclosed performance metrics prevents a higher rating on measurable impact dimensions.
The Mizuno WaveKnit String Ads are a 2018 Brazilian print campaign by Moma Propaganda. The campaign used hand-built string art — constructed from over 5,000 metres of thread and 6,500 nails — to map real running routes across three Brazilian cities, directly mirroring the knitted construction of the WaveKnit running shoe.
The Mizuno WaveKnit String Ads won a Bronze Lion in Print and Publishing at Cannes Lions 2018. The award was credited to Moma Propaganda, São Paulo, and recognised the campaign's craft-driven concept, which translated the WaveKnit shoe's knitted upper into large-scale handmade string art compositions based on Brazilian running routes.
Rodolfo Sampaio served as Creative Director at Moma Propaganda on the WaveKnit campaign. Art Directors Guilherme Martins and Jorge Yoshida led the visual execution, while Daniel Bensusan served as Copywriter. Pict Estúdio collaborated on the physical production of the hand-built string art installations, as documented by Clapboard.
A Millward Brown consumer study published July 2, 2018, described the campaign as well evaluated. The study sampled men and women aged 14 to 45 from ABC socioeconomic classes across seven Brazilian cities, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. No numeric consumer metrics were publicly disclosed beyond this qualitative assessment.
The WaveKnit String Ads required more than 300 hours of handcraft labour, over 5,000 metres of coloured string, and more than 6,500 nails, according to Clapboard. The finished compositions represented over 8,000 kilometres of streets and avenues drawn from running circuits in three major Brazilian cities, executed using five distinct thread textures.
Mizuno's WaveKnit strategy deliberately avoided the celebrity athlete partnerships and high-budget production dominant among competitors. Nike held approximately 41% of the global sportswear market in 2018, per brandminds.com, while Adidas held approximately 22%. Mizuno countered with craft-led, product-rooted print work targeting engaged Brazilian runners through local geographic specificity.
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