Blog: Nike

With the pandemic-enforced postponement of live sports creating an entertainment void for sports fans, US broadcaster ESPN played its trump card to capitalise on the thirst for stimulating content during lockdown.

In 2003, FIFA updated its primary logo to include the words ‘For the Game. For the World.’ Fast forward 17 years and governments around the world are instructing their citizens to stay inside. Now it is almost as if Nike consulted FIFA on its latest marketing campaign ‘Play Inside, Play for the World’, imploring enamored fans to play for the 7.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, technology is completely altering the relationship between ‘creators’ and distributors – and it is doing so in a way which is empowering the independent agency of creators, while leaving those companies that focus upon the distribution of their work increasingly scrambling to justify the ROI between content provision and monetisation.

On 8 October, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted support for the Hong Kong protests. The NBA had an exclusive partnership with Tencent to stream this season to an estimated 500 million fans in China, a market for which the business is estimated to be worth $4 billion to the NBA.

The egg that beat Kylie Jenner for the highest number of likes on an Instagram photo partnered with Hulu to promo an ad following the Super Bowl. Rather than ‘sell out’ for a branded message, The Egg’s (also known by fans as ‘Eugene’) first spot on Hulu (titled: S1 E1), was a message encouraging people coping with mental health issues to seek support from Mental Health America – providing the relevant links.

Over the last few years, brands have been taking increasingly political stances. Whether Heineken’s ‘Open Your World’ 2017 ad, or Gillette’s ‘We Believe: The Best Men Can Be’ spot at the start of 2019, there has been a growing trend for brands boldly (and some say, haphazardly), entering the ‘political’ sphere.

Amazon is reportedly bidding for all 22 US regional sports networks that Disney is putting up for sale (as part of its $73.1 billion deal to buy most of 21st Century Fox). Among the networks is the YES Network, that broadcasts New York Yankees games, as well as an array of professional NBA, NHL and MLB leagues.

Notoriously overwhelming, this week’s AWNY ramped activities up even further, expanding the number of stages from 8 to 12. A disorientating amount of content to navigate and a somewhat amusing metaphor for today’s digital consumer.