• June 7, 2007

Nike is launching a new raft of black-and-white ads around "Witness," which centers on basketball hero LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The new ads are timed to the NBA Finals, where he plays for the first time. The effort includes digital, print and television advertising and grassroots marketing.

The campaign--intended to give props to James and by extension, the sports-shoe company--has fans awestruck by his style. Itbegan in November 2005 with a giant billboard adjacent to the arena in Cleveland where the team plays.

The new execution will include a black-and-white print ad featuring a photo of James from the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals and the line "We Are All Witnesses." The ad will appear in Sports Illustrated, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Akron Beacon Journal this week.

The television commercial will show James in the 2007 NBA Playoffs. The ad ran during ESPN SportsCenter at 11 p.m. ET yesterday and will run during the first quarter of Game One of the NBA Finals, initially.

The campaign is also at nikebaseball.com and nikebasketball.com, where consumers can download wallpaper and commercials from the past two years of the campaign. The digital advertising buy includes home page takeovers, banners and video placement at sports sites such as espn.com, si.com and cbssportsline.com, as well as vertical basketball destinations.

The print and television executions, created by Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., and the digital execution, created by R/GA in New York, will be live throughout the NBA Finals.

--Karl Greenberg