RUNNING IS AWFUL I LOVE IT
With the Running category saturated with the aspirational joy of running, we wanted to create a more authentic voice with a repositioning of Nike Running that honestly reflects the true insight of runners without embellishments.
This campaign is about the conflicting reality of the sport:
if you really love running, you kinda hate it too.
The launch coincided with the marathon season with three films titled “Sunshine”, “Morning” and “Joy”, each one depicting the love / hate relationship of running from different angles. The fourth film, “Stairs”, aired the day right after the Chicago marathon, deeply resonating with the post runners’ painful all-too-real aches and pains of walking down the stairs after finishing 26.2 miles.
TVC / SOCIAL FILM
OOH / MARATHON TAKE OVER
We then launched a global OOH campaign that showed the conundrum through the use of run-on sentences that shifts in meaning halfway.
And then we hijacked the Chicago Marathon and the New York City marathon (an event which Nike doesn’t even sponsor), speaking to runners at every step of the way, from picking up the running bibs the day before, to the train ride home after the race.
#1 for THE 25 BEST AD OF 2024 (AdAge)