Spring means marathon season, so April saw Nike Running roll out a comic commercial revolving around shoe therapy and fronted by last year’s New York Marathon winner Shalane Flanagan.
The spot is the lead video in a (silly) new Nike series called ‘Shoe Therapy’.
The narrative sees Flanagan on her shrink’s couch attempting to clear her head prior to the 2018 Boston Marathon following a recent nightmare in which she dreamed that right before the race someone stole her shoes (her Nike Zoom Vaporfly 4 Percents).
The spot, which debuted on 9 April ahead of the start of this year’s Boston Marathon on 16 April, also stars Emmy-winning actor/writer Lena Waithe as the therapist trying to alleviate the long-distance runner’s fears.
The narrative sees Waithe talk the athlete ambassador down: “But then you woke up, you ran the marathon, and you won?”
Flanagan immediately corrects her, saying, “We won” as she looks fondly down at her neon red trainers.
In addition to the hero commercial and its supporting social pieces on Nike Running channels like Instagram, Flanagan also stars in two supporting humour-laden spots amplified across Nike’s digital and social channels in which the subject of who actually deserves most credit for her victory is explored.
Not only does Nike propose that Flanagan eats, thinks, and breathes her Vaporflys, but it also deploys several other sports stars from its endorser stable who are all lining up to see the shoe shrink.
These professional athlete ambassadors include a set of runners (some of whom don’t actually appear in person) like Galen Rupp,
Jordan Hasay,
and Eliud Kipchoge,
as well as Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green (who nurses his sneakers like a newborn in a baby sling,
San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman (who cushions and protects his shoes in bubble wrap),
collector Sean Wotherspoon,
sprinter Deajah Stevens,
and pro skateboarder Paul Rodriguez (who cleans his kicks with an electric toothbrush several times each day).
The lead commercial aired on television, while the supporting athlete extension spots ran in social, online and out of home.
Comment:
The campaign has been developed in harness with agency Dirty Robber: which was also one of Nike’s creative and production partners on the brilliant and award winning ‘Breaking2’ project (see case study) and our ‘Cannes For Fans 2017’ creative review (click to download).
Indeed, according to Dirty Robber’s executive producer Jason Puris, the original Nike brief was to build off Flanagan’s shoe dream and develop the idea into a larger story of shoe obsession across a host of sports and to utilise other stars from its huge endorser stable.
According to Dirty Robber director Martin Desmond Roe, who worked on the storyline, Waithe was given a few plot points and situational details, but was free to improv on set: “We fed her a few small details and she just went with it”.
We love it and we also feel it is vital for Nike to show its lighter side and its sense of humour – as with its recent SNL ‘Pro Chiller Leggings’ spoof (see case study) and its ‘Choose Go’ campaign (see case study) rather than just relentlessly sticking to its classic ‘Just Do It’ commitment mantra marketing.
Links:
Nike Running
www.nike.com/Running
https://twitter.com/nikerunning
https://www.facebook.com/NikeRunning
https://www.youtube.com/user/insidenikerunning
https://www.instagram.com/nikerunning/
Dirty Robber
