NIKE ALL-STAR WEEKEND 2023
In honor of All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, we were challenged to connect the stories of Nike’s ASW Signature Collection footwear with each respective player, while highlighting their roles in basketball history/culture. The legacies of these athletes and basketball itself are cured in salt, forever preserved in time.
Millenia ago, in early sub-Saharan civilizations, salt was valued more than gold and served as currency. The ancient practice of curing was essential to life, and has since become essential to preserving history. The creative strategy for this comprehensive visual center was to show how salt preserves these legends as we look to the future of basketball.
WHAT WE DID
Creative Concepting
Photo & Video Production
Organic Social & Integrated
Media
Print
App Threads & Emails
Web
Lifestyle
Based on the location, near well-known salt flats, salt and preservation were established as major themes. Leaning into these and the overarching concept of sport history, we took a very literal approach to the brand’s abstract storyline.
Both the history and hopeful future of basketball meet in the present day, on a salt-preserved court. As the players step onto the vast salt flats representing the timelessness of basketball, they encounter elevated manifestations of 3 of its greatest icons— performance shoes worthy of past, present, and future legends.
Hoops is never done, and sometimes the progress we make doesn’t start with standing on the shoulders of giants. It starts with standing in their shoes.
CREATIVE CONCEPTING
VIDEO & PHOTO PRODUCTION
The creative signified not just the preservation of the court, but also the preservation of the sport and preservation of each product. Our setting was a salt encrusted court, preserved in time, complete with basketballs, hoops, nets, and benches that were ambiguous
in both period and place.
On these salt flat ruins, we rested the ASW hero shoes on top of raw concrete building materials. These materials were designed to look as though they were left behind from the time of the court’s original construction, weathered from salt and wind.
Rather than have the noted players, themselves, be photographed, we opted for models with an emphasis on capturing them in action and with as little of their faces shown as possible. The goal here was to have them represent the consumer, donning the gear of their heroes and beginning legacies that could one day rival the greats’.
ORGANIC SOCIAL & INTEGRATED MEDIA
Social media content was primarily product-focused. While information about LeBron, KD, and Giannis was vital to the storytelling, it didn’t really delve into their individual careers in a biographical sense. We spoke more to their skill and how each translated to features of the shoes. However, there were a few instances where we used native interactive tools on Instagram to prompt discussion about iconic moments in their legacies.
One of the motion assets we submitted was an immersive ASMR TikTok, highlighting sounds of the court: the wind, chains on the net rattling, the ball being passed from hand to hand, etc.. ASMR is an incredibly popular hashtag and video genre on this app, with one of Nike’s most popular posts being of the same variety.
We designed a centerfold layout to highlight the Signature Collection launch for SLAM Magazine’s Feb/March issue. SLAM Magazine is a top-selling basketball publication that’s covered the sport’s most relevant news since 1994.
The app thread followed a similar format as the social media content, connecting each player’s story and skill to his respective shoe. Because there was a little more room for copy, it detailed the design inspiration, as well as some performance-aiding features of each sneaker. It also gave more context regarding the salt and preservation themes stemming from the game’s location,
Salt Lake City.
We completed three emails: one for the whole collection, one for KD’s shoe, and one for Giannis’ shoe. The first explained the narrative background for Salt Lake City, the salt flats, and preservation of sport. The other two gave an overview of each shoe’s features and design,
based on both athletes.
APP + EMAIL THREADS
In addition to the content for the original collection, we created an app thread, email, and Nike SportsWear social content for the Preservation Pack, a secondary line of lifestyle shoes designed to emulate the salt flats in honor of ASW 2023.
LIFESTYLE
