Nike is the latest brand to take social activation and user generated content to its natural conclusion: an ad consisting of solo testimonials submitted by the public.
In its last campaign for the sneaker giant, Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo cast soccer star Lee Young-Pyo as a voice discouraging aspiring athletes (and thereby inspiring them to work harder and win via some reverse psychology).
The spot played on the mental games that drive so many to sports, and it promised a follow-up created in collaboration with messaging app KakaoTalk, or the Korean version of WeChat. This new work is that next chapter, and it builds on a request for young Koreans to “tell their own stories about the value of sport in their lives” via self-submitted voice recordings.
As one can see, youth sports represents a wide range of things to a lot of different people.
This project essentially allowed 2000 participants to come up with their own version of Nike’s tagline, which makes for a fitting sequel to the previous work.
Interestingly, the campaign launched on the same day that thousands of young Koreans are taking national college entry exams, so it’s sort of an inspirational counterpoint. (Nike also shared a number of their testimonials on its social channels.)
W+K senior digital strategist Greg White says, “We wanted to give Korean kids the chance to have their voices heard, not just by us, but by their friends, parents and teachers. We used the app they use the most–KakaoTalk–to let them record their voices. We were blown away by what they had to say.”
The results fit right into Nike’s narrative: many kids take sports quite seriously and see playing successfully as a metaphor for living a disciplined life.
W+K TOKYO
Executive Creative Directors Mike Farr, Tota Hasegawa
Creative Director Adam Koppel
Art Director Daisuke Maki
Copywriter Damon Kim
Agency Producer Darryl Hagans
Account Team Ollie Pym, Casey Yoneyama, Liwon Kim, Ryan Johnson
Business Affairs Manager Amber Lavender
Digital Strategist Greg White
Strategic Planner Maria Correa
FILM PRODUCTION
Production Company Park Pictures
Director AG Rojas
Director of Photography Alexander Disenhof
Executive Producers Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Scott Howard
Line Producer Timothy Kerrison, David Hong
Production Designer Brian Croke
EDIT AND POST PRODUCTION
Editorial Company Cutters Tokyo
Offline Editor Aki Mizutani
Online Editor Yu Yasuda
Post Producers Timo Otsuki, Hayato Chaki, Shumpei Negami
Colorist Ben Conkey
Sound Design & Mixing Daniel Lovell
Local Agency Mate
MUSIC
Music Company Walker
Composer Eric Stamile
Executive Producer Sara Matarazzo
Music Producer Abbey Hickman
DIGITAL AGENCY
Company HS Ad
VOICE OVER MIX
Sound + Mix Company ASAP2015
MEDIA AGENCY
Company Innocean