Weiden+Kennedy's 'Nothing Beats a Londoner' Nike Advertisement

This advertisement was released early last month and has made waves across social media. It has been reported on extensively by news and marketing outlets such as The Independent, The Metro and Econsultancy.com, garnering millions of views on Youtube within the first few days of its release.

Humorously communicating the struggles of young people training in different sports across the capital, Nike made use of both celebrities and over 250 members of the public throughout the 3 minute short clip titled ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner'. 

The means of storytelling (Pratkanis, 2007) was employed with characters appearing adamant that the challenges they face are greater than those of any other sport background in the capital. This acts to  engage the audience and creatively increases salience of all of different means of fitness outlets which are available to young people in the capital: a core aim of the campaign. 

The utilisation of celebrities in order to persuade viewers to support Nike in their youth fitness campaign (as well as in purchasing their products) is the basis of the‘high-status admirer altercast’ (Pratkanis, 2007). This makes use of the influence of celebrities who are often viewed as higher status individuals whose lives, actions and appearances are deemed to be desirable and thus imitable. Celebrities specific to the target audience of London youth were used from a wide range of backgrounds spanning from musicians to sports personalities including Skepta, Jorja Smith, J Hus and Mo Farah.

References

Pratkanis, A. R. (2007). Social influence analysis: An index of tactics. The science of social influence: Advances and future progress, 17-82.