Nike Is Using Instagram’s IGTV to Share the Stories of Four Female Athletes

Nike and its longtime content agency, Conscious Minds, unveiled the Fight for Your Dream campaign, marking their next series of documentary-style athlete profiles on IGTV, Instagram’s long-form content platform. Conscious Minds executive producer Santino Stoner said of the campaign, “It's stories like these that not only inspire, but build lasting connection, especially as they reflect the rich and diverse family of Nike athletes. Just like there is more to a great athlete than their accomplishment in the ring or on the mat, any great story is more than just a timeline of events, more than a list of accomplishments—it's about bringing the athlete and audience close together in an immersive way.” Fight for Your Dream features four female athletes: Ramla Ali is a boxer who fled Somalia as a war refugee and settled in London. Ali won the 2015 Novice national championships and the 2016 England Boxing Elite National Championship. She also helped establish Somalia’s boxing federation in Mogadishu, its capital city, and became the first boxer to represent Somalia in the Women’s World Championships last year. [kickout id="1"] Another boxer, Zeina Nassar, led the push for the International Boxing Association to permit women to wear hijabs at international competitions. She was born and raised in Berlin by her Lebanese parents, and she is a five-time boxing champion in Germany. [kickout id="2"] Yasemin Adar is a world champion freestyle wrestler from Turkey, and she claimed her country’s first-ever gold medal at the 2016 European Championships. [kickout id="3"] Also hailing from Turkey is Irem Yaman, World Taekwondo’s top-ranked women in her weight class (62 kilograms) and also an amateur kickboxer. [kickout id="4"] “Rather than reducing each athlete to the single dimension of their story or their sport, our focus was to show them as the real ass-kicking women that they are: They can be fierce competitors in the ring or on the mat, winning at the highest levels of their sport, while also being thoughtful, funny and compassionate individuals,” Stoner said. “Each film challenges misperceptions about professional athletes, celebrating both their story and their sport. This personal approach is a natural fit for vertical storytelling within IGTV, especially as the platform explores new features such as the in-feed preview functionality.” Nike and Conscious Minds said they are approaching the Fight for Your Dream campaign like a network television show, with a full season of similar videos to come throughout 2019. Stoner added, “For us, it always comes down to the story. We see the story as the spark that fuels connection. And in the world of social, which is looking for exactly that, what cuts through the noise are unique and unexpected stories … And really, at the end of it all, from story as the spark of connection, then from connection to relationship, the impact of this kind of work can be seen beyond the metrics. Not only do we see huge growth and engagement for the individual athlete channels, but the larger awareness for each athlete and the causes they are passionate about lead to real meaningful change in their sport and in the world.” Instagram introduced IGTV last June as a stand-alone video application enabling videos of up to one hour long. Wieden + Kennedy is Nike’s agency of record.