Padel has always carried a certain visual language. Sun. Shorts. Southern Europe. Courts framed by palm trees or city edges. It’s lived comfortably in warmth, both culturally and climatically. Until now.

What Lacoste has done in Courchevel is deceptively simple. Two padel courts placed directly into a winter landscape. Snow all around. Mountains doing the backdrop work. No attempt to soften the contrast. Just a modern sport dropped into a cold-weather world.

The interesting part is how quickly it makes sense.

Padel suddenly reads differently. Not as a seasonal pastime, but as something flexible. Something that can travel. Something that belongs wherever culture, sport, and setting intersect. The courts do not shout about innovation. They simply exist, and in doing so, they change the frame.

This is where positioning shows its real value. Not in slogans or campaigns, but in placement. Choosing the right context does more work than any line of copy ever could. By placing padel in Courchevel, Lacoste has quietly expanded the sport's identity. Winter padel now feels not just possible, but logical.

We’ve seen plenty of attempts to force perception shifts through volume. Big launches. Heavy PR. Overstatement. This works because it does the opposite. It trusts the environment. It trusts the brand. It trusts the audience to connect the dots.

For creatives, the lesson is clear. If your brand is coherent enough, you can change how people see an entire category. You do not need to explain the move. You just need to make it feel inevitable once it happens.

Lacoste did not add winter branding to padel, they simply repositioned padel through context.

And once you see it on snow, it is hard to imagine it only ever belonged in the sun.

Shot of the good stuff.