• by Catharine P. Taylor , December 2, 2008

Nike's Second Coming

When Nike set out to market its Air Force 25 basketball shoe in January 2007 (which also celebrated the 25th anniversary of the seminal Air Force 1), the Beaverton, Ore.-based athletic apparel giant, along with longtime agency Wieden + Kennedy, did what you might expect: They went big, creating an epic 60-second commercial, grandly titled, "The Second Coming," featuring 10 of the biggest names in the NBA, including Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Tony Parker.

They commissioned two young hip-hop hotshots - Juelz Santana and Just Blaze - to create what a Nike press release referred to as not merely a song but "an exclusive track for the AF25 movement." The commercial was shot by music video director David Meyers. The campaign also wove its way into programming (with a special show,
"1 Night Only" on MTV and MTV2), featuring a joint performance by Nas, Kanye West, KRS-One and Rakim performing a Grammy-nominated track produced by Rick Rubin - and a display of some 1,700 Air Force 1's in every color and style under the swoosh. (The Rubin-produced song, "Better Than I Ever Been" - which contained several references to the Air Force 1 - and "The Second Coming" anthem were both sold on iTunes.)

In short, the AF25 launch was done in classic Nike style. Or was it?

In some ways, the shoe's debut illustrated how much things have stayed the same in terms of Nike's relationship to b-ball royalty and its ability to attract an audience. In 1982, when the Air Force 1 had its launch, the shoe, the first to use Nike Air cushioning, surrounded itself with NBA stars such as Moses Malone and Jamaal Wilkes.

But the AF25 launch also demonstrated how much Nike, as a marketer, has changed. As a lyric from the commercial's soundtrack says: "Let's say good-bye to the past - the future's here at last."

Aim High

Of course, the shoe's launch featured online integration deals, such as a Nike Air Force Channel on mtv.com. But the stars of the digital aspects of the campaign were consumers, who, through a special Web site, nikemashup.com, were able to edit their own spot. Using some 70 frames from the commercial, and a variety of musical tracks, the site gave basketball fans a particularly diverse array of content from which to roll their own spot. Organized into categories such as dunks and close-ups, the site (which is no longer live) made becoming your own commercial editor easy. Using a simple drag-and-drop interface, users could create a timeline of the action, play it, and send it on to friends, achieving something all advertisers seem to aspire to these days, but few actually achieve: the viral effect. Not surprisingly, some of the re-edits consisted of footage solely of one favorite player, such as Bryant or Steve Nash, and made their way to YouTube; some received tens of thousands of views. (Nike didn't return e-mails seeking more information about nikemashup.com's results or other aspects of the campaign.)

Yes, you could argue that, even at the time, there wasn't all that much new there; in February of 2007, as aficionados of consumer-generated commercials might recall, Frito-Lay's Doritos brand aired two consumer-created ads on the Super Bowl. Still, the Nike mashup illustrated how far fans can take a passion when you give them the tools with which to indulge it. According to Sarkissian Mason, the New York-based, digital-focused shop which worked with Wieden on the campaign's interactive efforts, some 1.5 million people visited nikemashup.com. More impressive, in a world where click-through rates are notoriously low, 65 percent of visitors created a personal version of the commercial. The average time spent on the site was six minutes, the equivalent of watching the commercial 12 times.

Sky Pager

But what truly separated the mashup effort from its predecessors was that it contained a mobile component - those who had the technology could mash, mix and share their Nike commercials via their mobile devices and register for behind-the-scenes clips of the shoot to be sent to their handsets.

This was particularly out of the traditional advertising box when you consider the context - the campaign launched some six months before the debut of the iPhone, which jump-started the cell phone as a true multimedia device in the United States. Even today, according to Forrester Research's "Benchmark 2008" study, only 4 percent of the U.S. market uses an iPhone, a Treo or a BlackBerry. Meanwhile, of those 1.5 million nikemashup.com visitors, 100,000 experienced it through their mobile devices, indicating that, these days, when it comes to knowing your demographic, you'd better know which media platforms they use.

The Nike mashup mobile effort extended what could be called a tradition at Nike, at least in the fledgling world of mobile advertising. At least as far back as 2005, Nike has employed some form of mobile in its efforts - a Nike ID billboard in Times Square that year allowed passers-by to "dial up" the billboard and, in 60 seconds, design their own shoe, which would then be displayed on the billboard. It could also be downloaded as wallpaper by its creator and even ordered.

As would no doubt be the case with the Nike ID billboard, which these days seems relatively static, if Nike were to launch the shoe today - or debut the Air Force 26 - it would do so with an additional flourish or two. Asked how he would alter the campaign for today's mobile consumer, Patrick Sarkissian, president of Sarkissian Mason, said: "I would make everything higher resolution because broadband has increased to such a high rate now. The output would benefit by being much larger on screen and also something that users would want to play with more because it would be more broadcast-oriented." He added, "We would also make this into an iPhone app."

With that in mind, digital-advertising enthusiasts are probably anxiously awaiting Nike's launch of the AF50, undoubtedly coming in 2033.