hand-painted advertising for Adidas and Karim Benzema

In October 2022, Karim Benzema was crowned Ballon d'Or winner. A month later, Adidas paid tribute to him with a monumental monumentalmurals in his hometown of Bron, on the facade of a building located along a busy busy motorway routemotorway, offering exceptional visibility from the Lyon ring road. The façade is highly symbolic: it's the one he saw as a child on his way to the local club, and later to the Olympique Lyonnais training center. The murals traces the milestones of his career and delivers a clear message to local youth: "Grow up here, become a legendwith the "g" replaced by the 9Karim Benzema's emblematic number.

The project began with a site search in collaboration with local landlordsto find a location that was that was visible, meaningful and technically suitable. The location was declared an exceptional advertising space, with the support of elected representatives. This approach made it possible to set up an annual fee paid to the city and a rental of the space to the lessorhelping to and multiply the number of cultural events in the neighborhood over the long term.

Creating the murals was a real physical and artisanal performancejust like top-level sport. For 40 days, four painters worked at height on 40 m high gondolasusing 500 liters of paint and hundreds of meters of tapemobilizing all the craftsmanship in situ. To preserve the surprise, a customized camouflage system was designed, gradually covering the work until the day of its official unveiling.

This project illustrates the power ofurban art as a communication toolcapable of transforming a facade into a visual a visual, social and emotional landmark. Funded by Adidas as part of its artistic sponsorshipit was accompanied bylocal actions: soccer tournaments with local children, distribution of sports equipment and meeting with Karim Benzemaoffering the community a moment of collective collective pride and inspiration.

Linking art, sport and neighborhood lifethis monumental murals reminds us that anything is possibletransforming a simple building into a a symbol of hope and local influence