Multi-brand excellence: Delivering six key installations at Sports Direct Liverpool
Bringing the brands to life inside the new Sports Direct Liverpool.
crafting new journeys
Being the dependable partner in charge of overseeing and carrying out the installations for six of the store’s most important branded spaces made our team extremely proud.
In the dynamic world of wholesale retail, securing consumer attention and commanding floor space is everything. For leading performance and outdoor brands, the challenge is how to translate a powerful global identity into a tangible, high-impact presence within a fast-paced retail environment like Sports Direct.
We take pride in being the strategic engineering partner for brands looking to win at the point of purchase. This post dives into our work across the Sports Direct estate, showcasing how we deployed bespoke, scalable retail concepts for key partners like adidas, Myprotein, New Balance, Under Armour, The North Face, and Columbia, proving that premium brand experiences can, and must, thrive in high-volume retail.
Gamifying the journey in Sports Direct…
adidas
The adidas installation in Sports Direct, Liverpool, centred on creating an irresistible interactive challenge: the adidas Football Skill Zone. We helped create this dedicated space where customers can enter an industrial cage to test their skills in a thrilling 30-second drill.
The game is simple yet highly engaging: two random green sections along the bottom of the dome light up, and the player must hit these targets as many times as possible without striking the surrounding red zones. This replicates a universal football drill, making it accessible for beginners, advanced players, and professionals alike.
Leveraging the power of product testing, this activation is designed to let customers product test the latest adidas boots in a real-life performance scenario. For consumers faced with cheaper online alternatives, this immediate fun and competitive testing environment is key to driving an instant desire to buy and cementing adidas as the brand that enabled that winning moment.
Players are prompted to enter their name and email, with their name then displayed on a digital leaderboard for all to see. This blend of competition and data capture ensures high engagement and measurable ROI for the brand.
See some of the D4R team in action below!
under armour
Our work with Under Armour extends beyond high-impact activations to establish a commanding retail presence across Sports Direct. As Under Armour’s trusted partner for branded retail fixtures, we conceptualised and executed a cohesive brand environment spanning the store. This comprehensive rollout included designing and installing bespoke wallbays and display zones that ensured the brand’s identity and athletic vision were consistently delivered across shoes, men’s, women’s, and kids’ apparel departments, creating a unified and high-performance landscape within the broader retail space.
This wide-ranging retail fit-out was designed to disrupt the traditional shopping experience and firmly establish Under Armour as a leading performance brand. By seamlessly integrating the brand’s industrial, athletic aesthetic into the core retail fixtures, such as the premium powder-coated metal wallbays, we created a differentiated in-store experience. This strategy ensures that every customer touchpoint, from browsing the latest footwear to the immersive ‘Total Footwork’ experiential cage, reinforces the message of innovation and performance that defines the Under Armour brand ethos.
Retail Design and Branded Spaces…
adidas
The challenge was clear: adidas’s branded spaces within Sports Direct had reached the end of their operational lifecycle, necessitating a bold, future-proof strategy.
The goal was to establish adidas as the undeniable leader in all key sports categories within the wholesale environment.
Our engagement moved beyond initial design, focusing intensely on engineering and developing a concept that could scale globally. Our strategy was centred on specifying a premium aesthetic, defined by brushed stainless steel, impactful illumination, and integrated digital engagement. This design was required to seamlessly extend across all major categories, including men’s, women’s, shoes, kids, and the associated experiential activation touchpoints. We successfully prototyped and launched this disruptive, performance-driven concept.
The concept’s visual strength and premium execution immediately garnered superior space allocation and visibility, creating a significant point of disruption against competitor brands. The immediate, measurable success of the rollout validated both the design direction and the technical execution.
myprotein x Everlast gyms
Following the overwhelming success of the Myprotein Kitchen pop-up store, the challenge shifted from proving viability to achieving strategic, large-scale integration. Myprotein partnered with D4R to embed their nutrition and commerce offering directly into the heart of the fitness journey through a landmark collaboration with Everlast Gyms. The goal was to revolutionise the member experience and establish a permanent, high-impact retail presence.
Our strategy focused on developing a versatile and scalable design template, the Myprotein Kitchen takeover, that could harmonize two powerful brand aesthetics. We engineered a system that combined efficient, standardised retail fixtures (like mesh shelving and POS) with high-impact, site-specific materials to ensure premium execution across diverse environments, from the performance-focused Liverpool location to the premium Nottingham site.
D4R successfully delivered a blueprint for national expansion, translating Myprotein’s digital presence into a robust physical hub. The successful rollout established a new benchmark for gym nutrition retail, providing a profitable and engaging destination that seamlessly connects members with the Myprotein brand at the point of fitness.
new balance
To solidify New Balance’s presence in Sports Direct, our team engineered a high-impact, premium footwear destination that masterfully balances brand storytelling with commercial efficiency. The concept utilises a sophisticated material palette featuring warm ‘light oak timber’ shelving contrasted with a clean matte white magnetic rear panel to create a bright, gallery-like setting for the shoes. Crucially, the design elevates key products through illuminated frosted acrylic hero frames with subtle downlights, while integrated digital screens run dynamic content to engage shoppers. The entire concept, which includes separate design treatments for Men’s and Women’s perimeter bays, positions New Balance for maximum impact and sales efficiency within the demanding wholesale environment.
Under armour
The Under Armour Branded Space for Sports Direct was designed to be a high-energy performance hub, moving beyond basic display to create an immersive, product-centric environment that aligns with the brand’s aggressive identity. The core strategy involved maximising product presentation for both apparel and footwear, using dynamic digital and illuminated features to command attention.
columbia
For Columbia’s presence within the Liverpool store, the challenge was to create maximum brand impact on high-traffic support columns with a minimal, scalable application, perfectly balancing their rugged outdoor identity with high-street retail efficiency. The design focused on using key architectural elements as powerful branding canvases. We used Dibond headers printed with a “classic pine” wood effect, immediately grounding the space in nature, complemented by a distinctive blue stripe and a 3D illuminated Columbia logo to ensure premium visibility . This scalable concept also integrated bold, humorous brand messaging, such as the “Mother Nature Can Be A Real Mother…” messaging on cascade print panels, turning simple structural columns into dynamic, engaging retail touchpoints that clearly reinforce Columbia’s durability and outdoor adventure focus.
the north face
The North Face retail concept, masterfully transports the rugged authenticity of the outdoors into the high-street environment, seamlessly aligning TNF’s iconic mountain brand identity with the operational requirements of the retailer. The visual anchor of the space is the prominent lightbox mountain backdrop , which immediately establishes the brand’s core ethos for both the Men’s and Women’s apparel areas. We engineered the space to maximise product storytelling, utilising 3D illuminated logo headers and Tech callout hanging tags to spotlight apparel technology and specialised outdoor gear. By cleverly applying custom-branded headers, bases, and graphic endcaps to the standard store fixtures, the installation maintains operational simplicity while delivering a fully immersive brand experience that clearly communicates TNF’s commitment to exploration and high performance within the demanding wholesale channel.
a client service manager's perspective
Having the opportunity to work with these amazing brands has been a pleasure; I’m thrilled with the outcome. – Ash Hemsworth
THE FINAL OUTCOME
We love the process of collaboration with Sports Direct and each brand, translating their unique identity and performance ethos into scalable, high-impact retail experiences. From the premium gallery aesthetic of New Balance and the performance theatre of Under Armour to the immersive outdoor feel of The North Face and the clever, compact branding of Columbia, we believe these concepts set a new standard for shop-in-shop execution.
We’re incredibly excited to see this successful blueprint roll out across future Sports Direct stores, driving both brand equity and commercial success across the portfolio, and we’re always looking to take on new challenges in retail.