Nike’s latest blockbuster #Choose Go’ ad leads a ‘running to make the world go around’ campaign that aims to encourage everyone to get out and run through a sci-fi style action film that sees the planet unify when the world stops turning.
Runners of all ages and nationalities work together – alongside a selection of A-List Nike athlete endorsers – and run in the same direction to start the earth spinning again.
The star-studded Nike sports endorsers cast includes basketballers Kobe Bryant and Giannis Antetokounmpo, sprinter Ge Manqi , gymnast Simone Biles, plus footballers Edinson Cavani and Kylian Mbappe, as well as comedian Kevin Hart and scientist Bill Nye.
The movie-like ‘Choose Go’ film opens with a news presenter announcing a ‘Stopocalypse’ (the Earth has stopped rotating on its axis), before a single runner is motivated to start running after watching her hamster in its wheel begins a global movement to run together to kick-start the world back into motion.
Teased on the last day of February ahead of its 1 March release, the ad is amplified across its digital and social platforms.
When our world gets stuck, there’s only one option – #ChooseGo.https://t.co/lpWAcMefEl pic.twitter.com/0rAm25J37q
— Nike (@Nike) March 1, 2018
The hero spot is actually just a cinematic spearhead for an underlying Nike running campaign that sees the brand offer audio guided runs through the Nike Run Club (NRC App) – featuring voices from the campaign.
The app is available to download at https://www.nike.com/gb/en_gb/c/nike-plus/running-app-gps
Starting on 2 March, Nike athlete ambassadors Nye, Biles, Antetokounmpo, Hart, Quigley, Jager and Farah each have their audio-guided runs (AGR) to offer ‘guidance, motivation and inspiration’ to runners directly through in-ear audio with Nike’s top coaches.
To follow this up, Nike is also hosting parallel physical and digital runs in cities from Los Angeles to Paris and Tokyo to Buenos Aries on 22 April.
The spot was developed in harness with agency Must Be Something (rather than usual Nike creative partner Widen + Kennedy).
The team was led by creative director/copywriter Jed Alger and creative director/art director Marty Grasser and included producers Kevin Diller, Derek Ruddy, Sarah Barkley Porter, Jennifer Kramer, Frank Brooks, account director: Andrew Schafer, account manager Hanna Nesper Newell, creative consultant Tony Hellberg and business manager Cindy Lewellen.
The production company was Anonymous Content and it was directed by Edgar Wright, while the director of photography was Ken Seng.
VFX supervision was handled by Glynn Tebutt of The Mill and the production team included executive producer Lori Stonebraker, producer Lisa Cowan, production supervisors Jewel K. Estephanos and Lisa Judice, plus production designer Ethan Tobman and costume designer Skye Stewart-Short.
The offline editors at Rock/Paper/Scissors were Biff Butler, Alyssa Oh and Lauren Dellara, while sound design was by Adrian Aurelius of Ballad, the track ‘Ganges a Go-Go’ was by Dan The Automator, the music supervisor was Sara Matarazzo of Walker and the composer/remixer was Morgan Z Whirledge.
Comment:
The commercial’s plot may be sci-fi crazy, but the creative is classic Nike: combining powerful and inspiring emotional creative with a tech-led, participatory phase that brings the brand’s Just Do It tagline to life.
The world certainly seems like it needs saving right now.
But despite the brand’s ongoing creative brilliance over the last month – from ‘Nothing Beats A Londoner‘ and ‘UntilWeAllWin‘, to ‘Air‘ – we’re not quite sure that Nike can do it all alone.
Was this a neatly timed unity-themed global spot and all-in participatory strand deliberately launched to counterbalance any criticism over Nike’s city-specific ‘Nothing Beats A Londoner’ campaign?
We may never know, but it sure looks like it might be.
Links:
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Must Be Something
