Nike Football celebrates England’s surprisingly successful World Cup journey with a new campaign called ‘Believe As One’ focusing on the roots of the team’s Russia 2018 adventure.
Launched on 17 July and led by a spearheaded by a spot with a narrative arc that explores the story of the most promising English team for a generation and centered around a called Kane.
The film’s focus is that this young team is united through their belief in each other and the objective is to captures the spirit of the side and the mood of the nation.
Amplified across the usual Nike digital and social channels – including YouTube
and Twitter.
Play as one. Fight as one. Believe as one. @england
⠀ ⠀
Believe. #justdoit pic.twitter.com/Xps7Hb97Mx— Nike Football (@nikefootball) July 14, 2018
The campaign was developed with creative agency Wieden & Kennedy London where the team was led by creative directors Paddy Treacy and Mark Shanley and included creatives Ben Shaffery and Max Batten, executive creative directors Tony Davidson and Iain Tait, group account director Ryan Fisher, account manager Ant Conlin, planning director Paula Bloodworth, planner JJ Bender, TV producer Richard Adkins, TV production assistant
Football didn’t quite come home this summer, but England’s journey was a fantastic ride and also saw the team reconnect with its fan base – little wonder then that The Football Association’s kit supplier saw the merits in a post-tournament salute campaign.
Particularly considering that the only two previous tournaments in which England have worn Nike kits saw Roy Hodgson’s side fail to get through the group stage at the 2014 World Cup and suffer a shocking defeat to Iceland in the last-16 of UEFA Euro 2016.
Nike is just one of several England partners to roll out tactical, responsive marketing salutes celebrating the team reaching the semi-finals.
Other include Lidl’s player car parking space stunt (see case study) and Visa’s Southgate tube station renaming and tactical press execution (see case study).
(while The FA in tandem with lead sponsor Vauxhall also rolled out its own recap behind-the-scenes style social video).
Nike also ran a celebratory campaign for World Cup winners France called ‘Belief Born On The Streets Of France (see case study) and ran a post-tournament campaign in China called ‘Dare To Become’ that aimed to inspire young Chinese footballers to work towards becoming a future football super power (see case study).
It was in late 2016 that Nike penned a 12-year extension to its Football Association partnership with England in a deal that will see all 24 England teams continue wearing Nike kit until 2030.
The shirt supplier partnership is reported to be worth in excess of £400m: a base number that is set to significantly increase according to performance-related bonuses.
At the time of the signing, FA group commercial and marketing director Mark Bullingham said: “We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with Nike until 2030. It was always important for us to secure such a long-term commitment to allow both parties to build an even stronger partnership together. With the FA striving to be a world-class organisation, it’s vital for us to partner with innovative global leaders such as Nike and look to the future together. As well as supplying all of our England teams with state-of-the-art apparel, Nike is a huge supporter of our technical division’s work and of grassroots football across the country. It’s fantastic that this support will not only continue but increase from now until 2030.”
Links:
Nike Football
https://www.youtube.com/user/NikeFootball
https://www.instagram.com/nikefootball/
https://twitter.com/nikefootball
https://www.facebook.com/nikefootball
Wieden & Kennedy London
The Football Association:
https://www.facebook.com/EnglandTeam
https://www.youtube.com/user/fatv
