Nike Launches Controversial Campaign In South Africa

Click Here To View Clip

Nike this month launched “what is sure to be a controversial advertising campaign” in South Africa depicting athletes “using their bodies as weapons,” according to Nikki Sandison of BRAND REPUBLIC.  The campaign, via Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam, is titled “How I Fight” and includes TV, cinema, print, outdoor and new media.  The debut TV spot begins with a sprinter “settling into the starting blocks with the noise of a gun clocking as it is loaded,” followed by a “basketball player preparing to shoot, a diver tensing on his toes and a [soccer player] moving in to strike the ball.”  In the last scene, a soccer player “represents the smoking gun as steam rises from his body.”  Wieden & Kennedy said that the idea of the campaign “was to challenge South African people, especially young people, to choose sport as their weapon in their everyday fight, rather than violence"  (BRANDREPUBLIC.com, 7/12).