NIKE NORTH AMERICA | GEAR UP "SHORT A GUY"

From the World Series to the Final Four to the Super Bowl to the NBA Finals, North America and its sports community have provided endless opportunities to celebrate sports.  Nike North America has hit a homer with many of these huge moments and other times, they had left runners on base.  Nike North America wanted to take full advantage of every opportunity and to do so,  we needed a unified voice and clear point-of-view to stand on.

Sports in North America from a spectator perspective were healthier than ever. But if you looked at sports from a cultural perspective and how kids interacted with sports, things had changed. With the increase in single sports specialization, the increase in time and resource investment, the increased importance of winning, and the constant search for the next great elite athlete, sports were no longer a passionate breeding ground for dreams, creativity, imagination and opportunity for our kids. Sports in North America had become a machine and kids were on the assembly line. In the sports world, kids basically had two options: to be the best or to quit and find something else to do. Unless you are a kid on the way to becoming an elite athlete, sports had very little to offer.

Turn on the television or open a magazine, a kid was bound to find two consistent images of the athlete - lifting weights in an intense training session or posing in the latest styles in a lookbook. For the kid focused on and inspired by a diverse set of experiences, it is easy to see why sports had begun to drop off their radar. Kids aimed to define themselves by who they are and their experiences and the way sports and athletes were predominantly displayed, kids had very little desire to want an athletic experience.

The obsession with winning and dominating were seen as the only way to “make it.". America had forgotten the one thing kids care about most is playing. It was time for kids to play harder than they had ever played before. They needed to realize that playing hard is not about afflicting pain and holding back tears. But playing hard is about playing free, without abandon. With this campaign, we aimed to give sports back to kids. Kids deserved to play and understand the true value of sports. It was time for kids to have fun and play.  By using a kid who spends his day going from sport to sport filling in for the missing player, we were able to reignite that freedom of play and bring some serious fun back to sports in North America.