Dick’s Sporting Goods partnered with Nike and a team drawn from the Beavertown sportswear giant’s athlete ambassador stable for the US retailer’s biggest marketing partnership to date and the second wave of its ‘Sports Changes Lives’ campaign.
Like the first campaign phase, the campaign message is based around how sport changes lives and the goal is to drive and inspire increased participation in sport and this is communicated through an anchor film and individual videos featuring the athlete endorsers running across TV broadcast, online video and social media.
The campaign was developed from a joint brief developed by Dick’s CMO Emily Silver and Nike VP/North America Marketplace Partners Chris Jones by Virginia-based agency Arts & Letters.
Following on from the March 2023 launch of the ‘Sports Change Lives’ platform, Dick’s linked with Nike (and sub-brand Jordan) to create a team of 10 ambassadors who all reveal how sports has changed their lives.
The 10 Nike/Jordan Brand endorsers included the LA Angels’ Mike Trout (MLB), Pittsburgh Steelers’ Najee Harris and Las Vegas Raiders’ Davante Adams (NFL), NY Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu and Las Vegas Aces’ F A’Ja Wilson (WNBA), Carmelo Anthony (formerly of the NBA), San Diego Wave’s Alex Morgan (NWSL and USWNT), middle-distance runner Athing Mu and Paralympian Tatyana McFadden (Team USA).
The campaign also has an added NIL college athlete component through ambassador DJ Wagner who has committed to play basketball at Kentucky for the 2023-24 season.
The films featuring Trout (‘Outlooks Change Outcomes’), Anthony (‘Courts Change Character’) and Ionescu (‘Determination Changes Destiny’) appear in broadcast TV ads, as well as social media and online video starting from 6 June, with the other spots following through the summer.
The campaign is backed by supporting content, while behind-the-scenes photoshoot footage is available exclusively for customers who connect their Dick’s Sporting Goods Scorecard and Nike Membership accounts.
Plus, a Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation focused cause strand of the initiative saw each athlete ambassador choose a youth sports organization to nominate for one of the retailer’s ‘75for75’ Sports Matter grants worth ‘$75,000 which provide youth athletes with greater access to play.
‘75for75’ will distribute more than $5.6m worth of grants in 2023.
The phase was promoted through a ‘75for75 Teams Up With Athletes’ spot which also dropped on 6 June.
(The details of the grants are that they must all fit within the foundation’s criteria. They must be either a 501c3 organization or public school that serves youth 18 years old and younger, and organized sports must be a part of its programming. Also, it must either serve under-resourced youth in a zip code with a poverty rate of 20 percent or more or a be a public school with at least 60 percent of students receiving a free or reduced priced lunch.)
“We’re always talking with Nike, and we have a lot of shared values. As we talked about the first phase and the launch of our campaign around ‘Sports Change Lives’, we talked about our shared values and the opportunity to came up to partner,” explained Kate Fedishen, VP of global brand and category marketing at Dick’s Sporting Goods. “We definitely share a lot of the same commitments, the same passions around empowering athletes, making a positive impact through sport. We have a lot of great brand partners, but Nike felt like the right fit for being able to tell this message.”
“It’s an amazing roster of athletes at Nike and Jordan. We love the diversity of sport they represent, and even more importantly, they’re athletes that are passionate about sport and using sport as a mechanism to inspire the next generation,” Fedishen added. “We looked for athletes who had amazing athletic accolades and they also had amazing personal stories, they’re amazing people who are all about inspiring and giving back to the next generation.”
“Together with Dick’s, we are on a mission to champion and inspire athletes of all levels,” commented Chris Jones, VP of North America Nike Marketplace. “Our shared commitment to making a positive impact extends beyond the game, and together we can make a difference in the lives of all athletes.”
“I hope that young people watching this campaign feel inspired and encouraged to go out and accomplish whatever goal they set for themselves,” added athlete ambassador Anthony said the campaign’s PR statement. “The change isn’t immediate, it takes time, and though it’s a tremendous journey, with perseverance and the willingness to learn you can achieve great things. The most valuable lesson I learned during my time in the rec centers was how to stand tall, believe in myself, and stand strong to my beliefs.”
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While the tactical approach, creative look and the medium of this second wave of work in the ongoing ‘Sports Change Lives’ initiative is different from the first iteration, the core intent and the main purpose hasn’t changed.
As Fedisham explained: “The first phase of our campaign that launched in March, the goal was to tell the story about the impact of sports and the ability of sports to change lives, whether it be character or the friendship sports provides, physical health, mental health. For this second phase in partnership with Nike and Jordan athletes, the goal and the message is the same.
The original brief to agency Agency Arts & Letters for the ‘Sport Changes Lives’ initial kick off in March 2023 was to bring to life the fact that Dick’s is company devoted to helping people realize their potential through sports and to create a platform to convey their mission to the world.
Indeed, the brief mentioned that, despite the company’s financial success, its higher-order mission hasn’t entirely broken through, so the agency sought to ‘develop a brand idea powerful enough to connect with any athlete and expansive enough to cover all the ways sports create positive change in people, teams, families, and communities’.
The resulting anthem led ad focused on a wide range of true-to-life changes everyday athletes experience, combined with real, sourced-footage moments that showcased the true emotional power of sports.
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