Nike Celebrates Cubs' World Series Win With Real-Time & Low Latency ‘Make Someday Today’ Campaign

Spearheaded by an emotional commercial featuring a young kid playing baseball on his own with the Chicago skyline in the background, Club sponsor Nike activates around the Cubs’ World Series with a hope-fuelled ‘make Someday Today’ campaign.

From TV work, digital and social strands, as well as local activations, train warps, out of home and reactive billboards, the initiative also includes a bespoke Cubs clothes line carrying the campaign tagline.

The advertising core and end piece of the initiative was a Cubs victory salute commercial that Nike aired on TV immediately after the final out of the World Series called ‘Goodbye to Someday’.

Nike used the first ad slot after the final out to leverage the moment that Cubs fans have imagined for 108 years as their World Series win wish finally came true.

The determined youngster acts out his dream of winning the World Series on his local diamond in an attempt to embody the endlessly ‘positive spirit’ that finally led the Cubs to glory.

The ad ends with the words ‘Goodbye Someday’ as it plays footage of the commentary from the game as the Cubs won.

The campaign had been rolling out across the usual Nike digital and social platforms, as well as in Chicago and on location at games through the postseason.

It's been a long time…but the @Cubs make Someday today. pic.twitter.com/BnUAGGaTim

— Nike (@Nike) November 3, 2016

It's been a long time…but the @cubs made Someday today.

A video posted by nike (@nike) on Nov 2, 2016 at 9:59pm PDT

Nike rallied the city of Chicago right through World Series week with its ‘Make Someday Today’ battle cry and clothes line.

Chicago has said someday for 108 years.

Make Someday Today. #WorldSeries
Shop @Cubs gear now at https://t.co/cCeRyTaByO. pic.twitter.com/3rHO0pCdb8

— Nike Chicago (@NikeChicago) October 24, 2016

Another interesting campaign strand saw Nike run so-called ‘living’ out-of-home ads – reactive billboards that responded to the actual game action.

The campaign was created for Nike by regular agency Wieden + Kennedy Portland. The director was Daniel Wolfe, the production was handled by Somesuch/Anonymous Content and editing by Joint: Trim and the soundtrack was Willie Nelson’s ‘Funny How Time Slips Away’

The ‘Someday’ idea itself leverages the anthemic Cubs fan song by star supporter Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vader.

Comment

These days timing is vital to great event activation.

But so too is a genuine understanding of a team and its fans.

Nike, an official sponsor of MLB, has produced a campaign that illustrates both perfectly!

Kudos to the brand and its agency W+K for blending emotionally relevant creative and second-perfect media timing to celebrating a historic sports moment.

Plus, by activating throughout the series and rallying the fans across the city, the brand avoids any accusations of jumping on the post-win bandwagon.

With 1.2m views YouTube views (just slightly behind Budweiser’s brilliant Cubs spot – see case study), plus 1.4m Facebook views, 709k Instagram likes, plus 30k retweets and 55 Twitter likes in 24 hours – the work is certainly generating plenty of traction.

It reminds us of Nike’s ‘Worth The Wait’ ad that it ran immediately after the Cleveland Cavaliers (and its biggest brand endorser LeBron James) won the NBA title in June (see case study).

We presume that Nike had also already made a pre-prepared Indians spot had Cleveland won Game 7…

As the 2015 season kicked off, Nike re-signed an officially licensed on-field and fashion apparel deal with Major League Baseball Properties.

The partnerships sees Nike, along with New Era and ‘47 Brand tie-up with the league until 2019 and sees Nike continue its status as the Official Competition Base Layer of Major League Baseball and allows the Nike swoosh logo to appear on the front centre on players’ necks during games.

The 2015 season marks 10 years since Nike began supplying MLB players with performance wear and it has also been an official league licensee since 2005.

Links

Nike YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/nike

Nike Twitter:

https://twitter.com/nike

Nike Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/nike

Nike Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/nike/

Wieden + Kennedy:

http://wklondon.com/

Chicago Cubs Web: