As cultural co-branding reigns supreme in China’s consumer market, what’s more cultured than a collab with one of the most prestigious higher education institutions, Tsinghua University? On 21 April, the 114th anniversary of the university, the German sportswear giant Adidas launched its collab with Tsinghua via the university’s merch shop and in-house brand Tsinghua Souvenir (清华印象).
From T-shirts and tracksuits to hats and bumbags, the collection fuses Tsinghua University’s signature purple and calligraphic logo with Adidas’s iconic three stripes to create a simple yet classic design. The collection sold out online on the same day, but a handful of Rednote users claimed there were still some items left in stock at the merch shop on campus. The Tsinghua Souvenir official accounts announced an “emergency restock”.
In fact, the Adidas-Tsinghua partnership began much earlier than the collab fashion line. Last year, Adidas’s global CEO, Bjørn Gulden, spoke at Tsinghua on his trip to China. This January, Li Luming, the President of the university, visited the Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Interestingly, Gulden wore a purple Adidas x Tsinghua University tracksuit that later became a part of the collab collection. The sportswear giant has partnered with Tsinghua for innovative research, sports on campus, athletic training, as well as the interdisciplinary development of sports with art and culture.
Adidas released its financial report for Q4 and the full year 2024 in March. The report shows that the brand has been growing in China for 7 consecutive quarters, and the annual growth in the Greater China market was in the double-digits in 2024, growing 10.3% year-on-year (YoY) to 3.46 billion EUR (3.93 billion USD). Adidas largely benefited from its expansion into lower-tier cities and towns, as well as embracing “guochao” (国潮, mostly Chinese elements in fashion and design) in its localisation. The Tsinghua collab selling out in a day proves that it’s a strategy that works.
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