James Walz
James Walz is Principal Designer at The Bernard Group, where he leads the design and development of retail experiences for global athletic brands. With more than 15 years of experience spanning graphic and 3D design, he specializes in translating brand strategy into compelling physical environments. His work bridges creative vision with production expertise, delivering retail experiences that are visually engaging, technically sound, and built for real-world execution. James is passionate about creating authentic brand experiences that inspire consumers and elevate the future of experiential retail.
Thursday Oct. 8
ONE GLOBAL MOMENT, MANY RETAIL EXPERIENCES: BRINGING THE WORLD CUP TO LIFE WITH ADIDAS
Major global sporting moments create extraordinary opportunities, and equally complex retail challenges. This session will go behind the scenes of adidas’ recent World Cup activations, revealing how a shared creative vision was translated into compelling experiences across multiple retailers, store formats and levels of scale. From oversized dimensional icons and immersive storytelling to flexible, repeatable fixture systems, the presentation will explore how design, development, engineering, production and installation worked together from the earliest concepts through final execution. Attend this presentation to discover how strong partnerships, integrated problem-solving and scalable design thinking can transform a single global campaign into distinctive retail experiences that build anticipation, invite participation and bring fans closer to the game.
Sponsored Session: The Bernard Group
Takeaways:
• Understand how to translate one global campaign into various cohesive experiences
• Discover the importance of collaboration between brand, design, engineering and production
•Learn strategies for balancing bold experiential moments with scalability and budget