Case Study: How JWT created the award-winning Nike cricket campaign

Senthil Kumar, National Creative Director, JWT India, says that Nike always inspires everyone to do better than what they do, be it on the playground or anywhere else. It even applies to the creative team which handled its branding. "It always inspires us to reach for the gold," says Kumar.

The company's brand campaign, which was released during the T20 World Cup, won JWT seven metals at the Cannes Advertising Festival. So, what was the thought behind the campaign and how did the advertising firm execute the idea?

PURPOSE:

The objective of the campaign was to offer an ode to the cricket crazy Indian youth for whom cricket is religion.

INSPIRATION AND VISION:

Brand Nike is known across the world for its commitment to sports. The inspiration behind this campaign is the future of Indian cricket, the cricket crazy youth. In a country of one billion, space is premium. But that never stops these youth from playing. All that matters is chasing the dream, whether it's to be man of the match, best player on the block or to play for Team India. So, the message the brand tried to convey to the youth through this campaign was this: Don't stop dreaming and never stop working towards being the best you can be.

The ultimate realisation of their dreams is to play for India and that dream is common across every pitch in India. The campaign reminds the cricket crazy youth that to get there one has to make the most of every moment they spend on that hallowed pitch. They have to seize every moment, snatch at every opportunity and train so that they never drop the ball. The only thing that matters is what they do on those 22 yards. And that's why it's important for every cricket crazy youth to keep improving their game with every ball as they rise from the streets to the stadiums. Hence the tag line - "Yesterday was not good enough. Today is not over yet. MAKE EVERY YARD COUNT."

EXECUTION:

The activation idea - Cricket crazy co-creation: The idea was to involve participation and co-creation for this project. This was activated both online and on ground across the country.

ONLINE CO-CREATION:

Cricket crazy youth across the country were invited via Facebook, Twitter and web to send their cricket playing action images in any of their chosen positions such as a batsman profile, bowler profile, fielder profile, keeper profile, etc. But each image was planned in advance to be a part of one seamless action. For example, the bowler would always leap over the wicket for the delivery, the batsman would always attack the ball to play a hook shot, and the fielder would always dive and throw the ball to the keeper and so on. And thousands of images in these split-second action key frames were uploaded and captured by cricket crazy youth across cities, towns and even some villages.

ON GROUND CO-CREATION:

The images of cricket crazy youth playing to the same pre-decided action were activated across several playgrounds by 108 different photographers, who were co-creators in this project to capture bowlers, batsmen and fielders across numerous locations. Cameras captured images across various playing fields in metros, grounds in small towns and even in rural India. The final TV spot includes 1,440 images stitched together from a bank of 225,001 crowd-sourced images of cricket crazy youth. The 1,440 seamless action images, captured by both cricket crazy youth and the 108 photographers, were chosen and stitched together to complete one action of the journey of one ball from bowler to batsman to fielder to keeper.