Nike’s Seismic Shift

As a self-proclaimed ad junkie, I’m a constant curator (dare I say hoarder?) of cool campaigns – especially those that full out crush the conventional. A few weeks back I stumbled upon an interactive campaign launched by Nike Football (Soccer for those of us here in the United States) that is absolutely phenomenal. You can watch the video below, but in order to experience the full interactive epic-ness of the campaign, you have to check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/nikefootball. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMv8g8CO4cQ[/youtube] With Nike’s release of the “My Time is Now” campaign, they truly created a seismic shift in the way they do advertising. This was an initiative in which the interactive element was the focal point and only after the interactive experience was built was it edited for the traditional television medium. This is huge. And, if you ask me, it’s the precise way in which we need to transform our thinking in the advertising world. It’s not about creating the perfect television ad anymore and then recreating pieces of it for a pre-roll ad on YouTube. It’s about how the user can best experience and interact with the message we are trying to convey. What’s your customer experience all about? What’s the emotional connection you strive to make with them? These are the questions we need to start asking because experience and emotion are what cause people to invest time in learning more. And most importantly, it’s what causes them to take action. With the “My Time is Now” campaign, there are nine hidden tunnels of content that viewers (are they participants now?) can access by clicking on tabs throughout the video. If you click on one you may receive a pep talk from an athlete or manager while clicking on another could launch you into a game produced by Sega. Simply put, this thing is legit. Sure, with a $2 billion marketing budget you can have plenty of nice [advertising] things, but I think this campaign is a true champion in the race to perfecting user experience.