Title | AWAKEN THE PHANTOM |
Brand | NIKE FOOTBALL |
Product/Service | NIKE PHANTOMVSN FOOTBALL BOOT |
Category |
E03. Innovative Use of Social or Community |
Entrant
|
WIEDEN+KENNEDY AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
|
Idea Creation
|
WIEDEN+KENNEDY AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
|
Media Placement
|
MINDSHARE London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
Production
|
SMILE MEDIA Barcelona, SPAIN
|
Production 2
|
BLACK LABEL PRODUCTIONS London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
Production 3
|
GLASSWORKS Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
|
Production 4
|
THE MILL London, UNITED KINGDOM
|
Credits
Eric Quennoy, Mark Bernath |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Executive Creative Director |
Craig Williams, Evgeny Primachenko |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Creative Director |
Riccardo Rachello, Henrik Edelbring |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Art Director |
Jake Barnes, Tyler Andre |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Copywriter |
Joe Togneri |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Head of Broadcast Production |
Elissa Singstock, Soey Lim |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Broadcast Producer |
Sanne Van Hattum |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Assistant Producer |
Stephane Missier |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Planning Director |
Hillary Heath |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Communications Planning Director |
Kathryn Addo, Alyssa Ramsey |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Group Account Director |
Amber Martin |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Account Director |
Fulvio Itagiba |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Account Manager |
Abderrahim El Khouani |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Account Executive |
Joe Burrin |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Head of Design |
Lizzie Murray |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Studio Director |
Lewis Beedham |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Studio Artist |
Gustav von Platen |
Designer |
Designer |
Loes Poot, Saskia Van Zwieten |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Project Manager |
Emilie Douqué, Belen Jerez |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Business Affairs |
Arthur Couvat, Joe Walton |
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam |
Editor |
Matthew Vaughn |
Black Label Productions |
Director |
George Richmond |
Black Label Productions |
Director of Photography |
Tim Wild |
Black Label Productions |
Producer |
Dom Freeman |
Black Label Productions |
Executive Producer |
Background
In the wake of the 2018 World Cup, Nike Football set out to launch a new boot: the PhantomVSN. As young footballers around the world prepared for their upcoming season, we wanted to make this boot the must-have for the pitch.
We know that word of mouth and athlete endorsements are much more powerful than just pure brand messages. So we decided to leverage our core athletes and footballing audience to help us spread the message of this new boot and its benefits. And make PhantomVSN the top selling premium football boot of the season.
Describe the strategy
To ensure we reached our core young footballer audience, we honed in on two of their key behaviors to leverage: 1) their high usage of Instagram and propensity to follow their favorite athletes on the platform and 2) their habit of using messaging platforms like Whatsapp to communicate and share content directly with their friends.
Through platform research, we also discovered that Whatsapp had recently launched an Android-only Small Business App with new features - including the ability to set up a business profile and an Auto-Reply feature, which would respond to all messages from new contacts with a single, automated message.
Armed with these insights, we designed our approach: Use the authenticity and reach of Nike athletes on Instagram (150MM+ combined followers) to drive to a Whatsapp experience where young footballers could discover our film first.
Describe the execution
24-hours before our film went public, we used top footballers’ Instagram Stories to “leak” the film to their millions of followers. Those with a sharp-eye were drawn to a "secret" phone number and a hint to hit it up on Whatsapp. The number connected followers to a mysterious Phantom Whatsapp account that sent out a cryptic welcome message and leaked a link to the un-released film. The stories were live for a 24 hour period, so fans had to act fast if they wanted to see it first and earn bragging rights by sharing it before the “official” launch.
List the results
In the first 24-hours, The Phantom contact released the film to 6k unique contacts on Whatsapp and drove 30k views on YouTube. This indicates that recipients of the film link shared it with an estimated 5x friends or re-watched it repeatedly, marking significant engagement with our content - and giving the film viral buzz and momentum (organic views of 3.1MM) before going public on Nike platforms and in paid media (189MM views).
Over the 72-hours The Phantom Whatsapp account remained active, it received 80k chat messages and over 10k video and voice calls. The Phantom was also added to multiple football-oriented group chats, adding Nike’s voice to their dark social conversations.