One of the many things I love about social media is the way it enables us to re-imagine how we use old media. This year I’ve seen Nike do this brilliantly twice – first in Vancouver during the Olympics, and now in Johannesburg for the World Cup – using the same technique of integrating social media with giant outdoor spectacular ads to create ‘socialised spectaculars’.
In Vancouver, as part of its ‘Force Fate’ campaign, Nike leveraged Canadian hockey fervour and its sponsorship of the Canadian hockey team, by inviting fans through Facebook to create their own inspirational ads featuring their favourite player , and then running giant projections of them onto the Sears Building on Robson Street in downtown Vancouver throughout the Olympics. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the executions.
They became a must-show for Canadian TV and a must-see, must-photograph and a must-share for fans – Nike took pictures of the projections and sent them to the people who created them so that they could share with their friends. Does it get any more social than that?
Four months later and 10,000 miles away in Johannesburg, Nike has repeated the trick at the World Cup as part of their ‘Write The Future’ campaign, but made it bigger in every way.
‘Write The Headline’ has global appeal by featuring Nike’s stable of football icons from around the world. The social media element is much broader too – fans can get involved through Twitter (#writethefuture), QQ (a Chinese chat programme) and Mxit (a South African IM app) as well as Facebook. And the ad is state-of-the-art – a dynamic LED installation that dominates the Southern Life building which towers over Johannesburg and can be seen for miles. Up to 100 headlines are selected each night and transformed into player animations, and when a fan’s message is used Nike sends them the animation.
Give it a try in the Write the Headline Facebook app, and check out the promo film.
By Tim Crow on June 24th, 2010
Tags: Advertising, Default, Digital marketing, Facebook, Football, Olympics, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics, World Cup
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