Adidas marketing strategy to promote LGBTQ rights did ‘more harm than good,’ branding expert says

Branding and marketing expert, Karen Tiber Leland, said the Adidas LGBTQ swimsuit ad campaign will hurt the company brand after facing fierce backlash.

Adidas' controversial LGBTQ+ advocacy campaign did "more harm than good" for the brand's image and failed at their of advocating for the pride community, a branding expert told Fox News.

Adidas released the "Let Love Be Your Legacy" collection and campaign in collaboration with South African designer Rich Mnisi earlier in May, with the goal of supporting the LGBTQ+ community. The company said the marketing strategy was an attempt to "encourage allyship and freedom of expression without bias, in all spaces of sport and culture." 

But one of the models on the Adidas website that was wearing a woman’s bathing suit ignited backlash. The male-presenting model was seen wearing the women-branded swimsuit piece with a visible bulge in the crotch area.

This ad ended up hurting the company, Sterling Consulting and Marketing Group President Karen Tiber Leland told Fox News Digital.

"I think the way this was done hurt Adidas brand," Leland said. "It became about the way they did it, not about what they were trying to support."

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"I don't think it was so much their support of [the LGBTQ] community as it was that the controversy was over how they executed it and how they dealt with it," Leland said. 

Adidas needs to "consider the other constituencies that they have … and how those groups feel about the way that they went about expressing that support," Leland added.

Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer and outspoken defender of women’s sports, tweeted that