Adidas x Molly-Mae did not feel like a launch. It felt obvious.
When the partnership was announced, there was no confusion and no backlash. Just a quiet reaction from the market that said: this makes sense.
That reaction is rare in influencer marketing 🔥
…And it is exactly why this collaboration matters.
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In this short article, we’ll break down:
👉 Why Adidas shifted toward a more stable, trust-led partnership strategy
👉 How Molly-Mae’s long-term, organic relationship with Adidas made this deal inevitable
👉 What the real performance and audience data shows using Click Analytic
👉 Why organic influencer partnerships consistently outperform forced ones
👉 And how brands can replicate this approach to build stronger, long-term creator programs
Not because the partnership is big.
But because it was built on behaviour that already existed.
For marketers, Adidas x Molly-Mae is a clear example of how organic influence, audience trust, and data-backed alignment outperform forced partnerships every time.
Ready? Let’s uncover 👇
Adidas Needed Stability, Not Another Loud Partnership
Over the past few years, Adidas has experienced significant cultural swings.
High-profile collaborations brought attention, but also risk.
The end of the Kanye West partnership showed how quickly cultural relevance can turn into a business liability when a brand is overly tied to one figure.
That moment changed the rules.
Adidas did not need another polarising personality.
It needed stability. Credibility. Trust.
Someone who felt grounded. Someone audiences already believed in.
That context explains the environment. But it is not the story.
The story is Molly-Mae 👇
Molly-Mae Was Already Wearing Adidas Before the Deal
Long before the official announcement, Molly-Mae was already wearing Adidas.
Not as a campaign.
Not as a launch.
Just as part of her life.
And more importantly… It was visible all across her social media channels.
Her followers saw Adidas on her Instagram posts, on Stories, in everyday outfits. No explanation needed. No caption trying to sell anything.
This matters more than most brands realise 👇
💡Audiences do not suddenly accept brand associations on announcement day. They accept them through repetition. Through familiarity. Through habit.
By the time Adidas formalised the partnership, Molly-Mae’s audience had already made the connection themselves.
That is why this collaboration did not feel like a pivot.
It felt like a natural next step.
From Organic Affinity to a £20M Business Move
Molly-Mae’s rise didn’t happen overnight.
Before becoming one of the most influential lifestyle figures in the UK, she built her audience by being consistent, accessible, and commercially smart. What started as content creation quickly turned into brand building.
She is not just an influencer who promotes products.
She is a founder, an operator, and a businesswoman.
Over the years, Molly-Mae has launched and scaled her own ventures, most notably Maebe, her fashion brand, while maintaining long-term relationships with selected partners rather than jumping from deal to deal. That approach matters.
It signals discipline.
By the time Adidas formalised the footwear collaboration, Molly-Mae was already seen by her audience as someone who:
- Makes intentional brand choices
- Repeats partnerships she genuinely believes in
- Builds businesses, not just campaigns
Media reports estimating her net worth at around £20 million after the Adidas deal are not just a reflection of fame. They reflect her ability to turn trust into long-term commercial value.
For Adidas, this was not a bet on a trend.
It was a partnership with someone who understands brand equity from both sides of the table.
That is what turns an organic affinity into a serious business move.
Adidas x Molly-Mae Performance Metrics
Usando Análise de cliques, we can look beyond headlines and assess what actually happened once the collaboration went live.
Campaign performance highlights
▶️4.8 million views on Instagram
👍More than 500,000 likes
💬Over 2,000 comments
👀 441,000 views on TikTok
@mollymaehague ADI X MM…what started as a dream years ago is now becoming reality. My own footwear collection with adidas, coming soon. (PINCH ME😭) #fyp #adidas ♬ original sound – Molly-Mae
These numbers matter because they show attention, not just exposure.
People did not scroll past this content.
They engaged with it.
But performance alone does not explain why this partnership works.
The deeper insight sits in the audience data 👇
Audience Overlap Shows Why This Partnership Scales
One of the most common mistakes in influencer marketing is ignoring sobreposição de público.
Click Analytic makes this visible instantly.
In this case:
ℹ️ Around 4 percent of Adidas UK’s Instagram followers already follow Molly-Mae
ℹ️ Only about 0.77 percent of Molly-Mae’s audience follows Adidas
This is a strong signal.
It means Adidas is not paying to reach people who already know the brand.
They are accessing new demand.
That is incremental growth.
Not recycled reach.
From a demographic standpoint, the fit is clear. Molly-Mae’s audience is young, female, and fashion-focused. Exactly where Adidas wants to strengthen relevance today.
This is what alignment looks like when it is measured, not assumed.
Why Organic Influencer Partnerships Always Perform Better
Audiences are extremely good at spotting forced partnerships.
Most marketers have seen this play out:
👉 Creators promoting products they never use again
👉 Celebrities switching brand categories overnight
👉 Comment sections calling out the disconnect immediately
These campaigns do not just underperform. They quietly damage trust.
Well-known examples like the Pepsi and Kendall Jenner campaign or the influencer promotion around Fyre Festival still get referenced years later because the issue was not execution.
It was credibility.
The partnership started with a contract, not behaviour.
Adidas x Molly-Mae followed the opposite path ✅
Her community was already accustomed to seeing Adidas as part of her identity. She had worn the product consistently. She had collaborated with the brand before. The audience accepted the association long before it became official.
The campaign did not introduce something new.
It confirmed something familiar.
That is the difference between selling and reinforcing belief.
How Brands Can Replicate This Strategy
This approach is not limited to global celebrities. It is a repeatable process for any brand 👇
Step 1️⃣: Identify creators already mentioning or buying your product
Before outreach, brands should ask a simple question.
Who is already talking about us?
Com Análise de cliques, brands can identify creators who have organically mentioned their product across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. These mentions are not driven by payment. They are driven by genuine usage.
📶 This is the strongest signal you can start from.
If a creator already chooses your product without being paid, alignment risk drops immediately.
Step 2️⃣: Select the best fits using real performance data
Not every organic mention deserves a partnership.
This is where data removes guesswork.
Usando Análise de cliques, brands can evaluate EVERYTHING!
👉This is where Molly-Mae is a textbook example of doing it right.
On paper, she’s a big creator.
But what really makes her a strong partner is not follower count.
It’s how her audience behaves 👇
Using Click Analytic, several signals stand out:
👉 First, engagement quality.
Her content consistently drives high interaction, not just views. The Adidas collaboration generated +5M views across platforms.
That tells you people are not just seeing the content. They are stopping, watching, and reacting.
She has +10M followers across Instagram and TikTok and she can reach a massive amount of people.
-> 13.7M views on average on IG Reels
-> 4.5M views on average on TikTok per content
👉Second, engagement that holds at scale.
Across Instagram Reels and TikTok videos, her content regularly generates:
- Strong view-to-follower ratios
- High like volume relative to reach
- Meaningful comment activity, not just emojis
This matters because many large creators lose engagement as they grow. Molly-Mae hasn’t. That’s a key performance signal for brands looking for reliability, not spikes.
👉Third, audience demographics that fit lifestyle brands.
Her audience skews:
- Predominantly female
- Strongly concentrated in younger age brackets
- Heavily lifestyle, fashion, and beauty oriented
This aligns extremely well with Adidas’ lifestyle and footwear positioning, especially for everyday wear rather than performance-only products.
👉Fourth, platform consistency.
One of the biggest risks in influencer marketing is creators who perform on one platform but underdeliver on others.
Molly-Mae shows the opposite pattern.
Her Instagram and TikTok audiences are both highly engaged, which means Adidas is not relying on a single distribution channel. The partnership travels well across formats, from Reels to TikTok video to Stories.
Put simply, Molly-Mae was not selected because she looks good in a campaign deck.
She was selected because the data shows:
- Consistent performance
- Strong audience-brand fit
- Real growth opportunity
That’s what “selecting the best fit using performance data” actually looks like in practice.
Step 3️⃣: Build long-term ambassador relationships
The Molly-Mae partnership works because it is not a one-off.
Long-term collaborations build familiarity. They reduce creative friction. They compound trust.
Over time, audiences stop questioning the partnership and start accepting it as part of the brand story.
This is when creator marketing shifts from campaigns to brand building.
What This Signals for Influencer Marketing
Adidas x Molly-Mae is not about replacing one face with another.
It reflects a broader shift in how influence works.
Creators are no longer just distribution channels.
They are cultural filters.
The brands that win will be the ones that:
✅ Observe behaviour before signing contracts
✅ Validate alignment with data
✅ Prioritise consistency over hype
This partnership is a clear example of that approach working at scale.
Final Takeaway for Marketers
Adidas did not create relevance with Molly-Mae ❌
➡️ They recognised it.
➡️ They noticed behaviour that already existed.
➡️ They validated it with data.
➡️ Then they formalised it.
That is the future of influencer marketing.
The best partnerships do not feel like launches.
They feel obvious.
And when they feel obvious, performance usually follows.
