Jordan Brand’s Air Historian Chronicles 25 Years Of Flight In ‘Different Courts, Same Drive’ China Campaign

To mark 25 years since Nike’s Jordan Brand landed in China, Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai created a campaign with The Air Historian called ‘Different Courts, Same Drive’ to tell the story of the brand’s history and reinforce the brand’s positioning and spirit across the basketball and cultural landscape.

According to the campaign, Jordan stands for never admitting defeat, for breaking the rules and ultimately always aiming higher.

The campaign celebrates Jordan’s spirit via a series of story spots about famous faces who share founder Michael Jordan’s insatiable hunger for greatness and aims to inspire viewers to find their own ‘Jordan Spirit’ and ‘to aim higher no matter what court they play on’.

The stories are curated and narrated by the agency-created, brand know-it-all Air Historian: the campaign’s central character is played by well-known Chinese Comedian Tong Monan who acts as the key to sharing the brand’s history from a fresh perspective.

The Air Historian lives in a Jordan museum turned laboratory and spends his time exploring and bringing to life the Jordan spirit and each episode peeks into his mind and explores Chinese metaphors, fables and idioms.

The campaign spans six episodes covering a range of stories ranging from basketball, to street dance and from skateboarding, to hip hop and fashion and the creative features a cast of stars: including Chinese basketballers Guo Ailun and Yang Shuyu, streetballer MoreFree, sneaker shop founder Guo Yu, hip hop dancer Nicky, skateboarder Xiaohei, rapper Jony J and CLOT Founder Edison Chen.

The first creative roll out was a trio of spots titled ‘Sparrow’, ‘Needles’ and ‘Bean’ running across the company’s social media channels and hubbed on the interactive digital museum developed for the anniversary.

“We wanted to create a larger-than-life, charming, walking/talking Jordan encyclopaedia. Since that person obviously doesn’t exist, we invented him,” said W+K Shanghai Associate Creative Director Nick Partyka. “This dude can convince you how a little sparrow is related to two-time CBL champion Guo Ailun or why bean sprouts are the perfect metaphor for Jony J’s meteoric rap career.”

“Jordan is no longer about one Jordan. It’s about the family,” added W+K Shanghai Creative Director Zhong How. “The visuals brought this family together to demonstrate “Different Courts, Same Drive”. Each one celebrates one main protagonist in their respectful court. And using motion further helped convey the idea by combining all of their worlds into a seamless singular one.”

The campaign was briefed in by the marketing team at client Jordan which included Andy Liu, Kaye Tsai, Edith Wang, Shawn Liu, Andes Yu and Mandy Wu by a team at agency W+K Shanghai which included Executive Creative Directors Ian Toombs and Vivian Yong, Creative Director Matt Meszaros, Associate Creative Directors Jing Qiu and Nick Partyka, Senior Copywriter Christy Chen, Head Of Design Juni Hsu, Senior Designer Dongni Liu, Junior Designers Loop Lu and Tingru Hou, Senior Producers Maggie Wong and Raymond Lau, Producer Rony Chan, Senior Planner Chris Kirkup, Planner Bart An, Junior Planner Katie Li, Group Brand Director Qinna Ye, Senior Brand Manager Yuting Zhang, Brand Manager Lynn Kuo and Senior Brand Executive Howan Tong.

Comment

There are echoes here of Spike Lee’s Mars Blackmon in Air Jordan’s US marketing (who returned to mark Nike’s 50^th anniversary earlier in 2022) and perhaps W+K Shanghai’s new character has been created to do something similar for the brand in China?