Our initial phase of partnership with Nike centered on resetting their global brand standards, elevating the consistency and aesthetic of their approach across consumer touchpoints. Everything was rooted in recentering Nike on sport—what Nike stands for.
The key insight driving the work was that while Nike excelled at high-level storytelling and creating iconic campaigns, most consumers experienced the brand through much smaller, more erratic touchpoints—emails, product pages, social posts. These touchpoints, full of undifferentiated product photography and disconnected messages, were undermining Nike’s premium brand promise. Nike didn’t want to look like generic retail; besides the logo on the clothes, there was nothing in some of their photography that was distinguishable from The Gap.
We audited Nike’s consumer interfaces and the ways that they communicated throughout their funnel, finding an opportunity to transform consumer experiences and moments across the calendar (back-to-school, holidays, and summer gear-up) into brand-right engagements that are all about sport.
We shifted focus from product-first to people-first narratives. Instead of only showing the shorts, devoid of human context, the shorts are seen on an athlete out on a run in a city.
Part of this workflow included the Nike After Dark tour, which is a half-marathon held in major cities around the world, run at night. We translated that into Los Angeles-specific city activations, identifying local stories and paths to connect and engage with a key market. We constructed an editorial system by highlighting local run clubs and elevating individual, local voices. Whether it's a run club member sharing a favorite route, or linking to their most trusted shoes, this connects human stories to products.
This is an entire re-thinking of the way Nike engages with editorial storytelling. By centering people’s stories that lead to product, instead of the other way around, every part of the brand down to a sale-alert email is charged with a new energy and purpose. The majority of what consumers mid-funnel see from Nike isn’t a national television campaign; it’s the smaller brand moments that, once aligned, make a massive impact at scale.
The iconic campaigns need to be complemented by simple and clear digital retail interactions.
By realigning and reestablishing cohesive brand standards across consumer moments, and laddering up from on-the-ground activations to high-level strategy, this reset is helping to drive Nike's brand rebound.
