The Impossible Pair–Together in Difference

The inspiration came at a MESA gathering in New York, where one of the brilliant minds around the meeting table used this simple-but-stark image to illustrate the meaning of being different but living together in peace:

Two sneakers–one Nike, one Adidas–in the same box.

And with that vision, PACT!’s first major activation was born.

We call it The Impossible Pair. Two competing brands, one left shoe, one right shoe…worn together for good.

On the surface, it's a subversive sneaker colab, but one stitched together from differences. A true fashion “statement”; a symbol of unity over hate.   

It was born as a single idea…but it exploded as a multitude of actions.

First came an AI video by bunneekaiv (a story that deserves its own blog post…but we digress). Designed to be an experiment, everyone we showed it to exclaimed: “You have to bring this to life!”

And to life we brought it!  

First, we pitched the idea to the C2MTL conference as a surprise ending to a presentation from PACT!’s founder. We would assemble 100 Impossible Pairs, and sell them for $75 each in a pop-up store just outside where we’d be speaking. While flabbergasted, the conference execs bought in with a smile.

All monies raised at said store would go directly to charity, and we found the perfect partner in both name and mission–a local group called Ensemble pour le respect de la diversité, a non-partisan, non-profit organization whose goal is to bring communities together despite their differences. (For those non-French speakers, the name translates to “Together for the respect of diversity.”)

Then we had to find the shoes, which was easier said than done.  First problem was matching Nike and Adidas shoes that had a semblance of resemblance, and were also relatively comfortable to wear despite being totally different.  Second was actually buying them; we thought stores would be thrilled to sell 100 pairs in one fell swoop, but little did we know that most have a four-pair limit to dissuade resale.  So off online we went, and made a couple of orders that must've had some stock picker somewhere scratching his or her head.

A somewhat radical veteran of the sneaker wars designed the outrageous logos to brand our two new hybrid names, which we used as a base to accessorize the Impossible Pairs with custom dogtags, and plaster their boxes with 11 different stickers and a calling card.

Next, a custom Impossible Pair e-commerce website, reached by two different URLs (adike.store and nididas.store), as well as a social media campaign to get the word (and pictures, and videos!) out.

Finally, some pop-up banners to mark the territory of the pop-up shop…and we were in business.

So yeah, a whole lot of fun…but in the PACT! way, fun with an important message: Yes, they’re different, but so what?  As we said on one of our stickers, “If the swoosh and the stripes can coexist peacefully in the same box, why can't we on the same planet?” 

The end result of all this?  

Well, we just launched it.  Will the Impossible Pair be a nice local launch for the PACT! team, or will the message, the distinct visual and the statement spread to be a wide-reaching social or cultural phenomenon?

Check this space for updates!