W+K Amsterdam, Nike Russia Highlight Female Athletes in #BetterForIt Follow-Up

By Patrick Coffee 

Last week, an agency called Must Be Something promoted Nike with what it called The Fastest Ad Ever, a rapid-fire hodgepodge of athletes being athletic.

W+K Amsterdam has been working on a very different sort of campaign for the same client’s Russian wing. This one follows on the female-focused “Better For It” series with the help of several top Russian athletes brought to life in a series of films and murals across Moscow. The campaign aims to focus on talented people both famous and nameless in order to “inspire women to be more active” by “highlight[ing] a woman’s inner thoughts” as she takes on various physical challenges.

The digital films–shot by sport/fashion photographer Carlos Serrao–have been live for a couple of weeks, accumulating the attendant number of YouTube views.

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This one stars a particularly intense yoga master/tattoo enthusiast whose name we can’t read:

A more recent entry featuring top ballet dancer Diana Vishneva invites some interesting comparisons to the Cannes-winning Under Armour spot from Droga5:

Several others may be found on the Nike Women’s YouTube page.

This campaign went well beyond video, though. From the release:

“The #betterforit movement culminated in Moscow when Nike took over Gorky park for a 10 day immersive sport experience. More than 25,000 girls came together over the course of the 10 days to participate in activities ranging from yoga to dance.”

That must have been quite an event. While we don’t have footage, W+K and Nike did enlist some artists to immortalize five Russian women in murals on buildings around Moscow. The client shared animated GIFs cut from the videos that served as source material for these murals. After shooting time-lapse clips of the buildings, the team superimposed videos of the athletes over them in order to create the loops, which were conveniently geo-located so curious followers could find the original works in the city. Here are three of the resulting GIFs.

First, “Jumper”:

“Skater” with an image of the static mural for reference:

wkams_nikewomenFinally, “Sprinter” competes with Moscow traffic:

W+K Amsterdam Creative Director David Smith explains the agency’s goals for the campaign:

“We wanted to give this work a sense of legacy. So many ads today are about a one second moment, and we wanted more, we wanted pieces that would be remembered for a long time.

The scale and beauty of the photography really gives these girls the heroic stature they deserved.”

Credits interestingly include production/activation work from BBDO’s Moscow unit.

NIKE RUSSIA WOMEN – ‘BETTER FOR IT’

WIEDEN+KENNEDY AMSTERDAM
Executive Creative Director: Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy
Creative Director: David Smith, Alvaro Sotomayor, Craig Williams
Art Director: Ignasi Tudela
Copywriter: Zoe Hawkins
Head of Content: Joe Togneri
Planner: Danny Feeney, Michelle Arrazcaeta
Communications Planner: Josh Chang
Group Account Director: Kirk Johnsen
Account Director: Kathryn Addo
Senior Account Manager: Jorge Fesser
Broadcast production / Head of Art Buying: Maud Klarenbeek
Art buying / broadcast production: Javier Perroud
Head of Studio: Jackie Barbour
Retoucher: Dario Fusnecher
Project Manager: Janna Harrington
Business Affairs: Michael Graves

FILM / PRINT PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION COMPANY: TERRIE TANAKA MANAGEMENT
Director/Photographer: Carlos Serrao
Director of Photography: Monica May
Producer: Amy Lynne
Executive Producer: Terrie Tanaka
EDITING COMPANY: WHITEHOUSE POST
Editor: Sam Gunn

AUDIO POST: WAVE AMSTERDAM
Sound Designer/Mixer: Alex Nicholls-Lee

MUSIC: GLINTSHAKE / MASSIVEMUSIC
Katya Izotova: Glintshake
Olga Markes: Glintshake
Adelina Sotnikova: MassiveMusic
Diana Vishneva: MassiveMusic
Darya Klishina: MassiveMusic

POST PRODUCTION: GLASSWORKS
Flame: Morten Vinther
Telecine: Scott Harris
Producer: Jane Bakx

MEDIA BUY: MINDSHARE RUSSIA

DIGITAL PRODUCTION + SOCIAL ACTIVATION: INSTINCT BBDO MOSCOW

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