| Title | HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL LEAGUE |
| Brand | NIKE |
| Product / Service | NIKE |
| Category | H01. Integrated Multi-Platform Campaign (Online & Offline) |
| Entrant | MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA |
| Idea Creation | MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA |
| Media Placement | MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Joey Kang | Mindshare | General Manager |
| Tendayi Chivaro | Mindshare | Partner |
| Colleen Canty | Mindshare | Strategy Director |
| Selina Li | Mindshare | Strategic Planning Director |
| Velvet Yuan | Mindshare | Strategic Planning Manager |
| Harry Li | Mindshare | Strategic Planning Supervisor |
| Danny Lee | Nike | Greater China Media Director |
| Vickey Huang | NIke | Greater China Senior Media Manager |
| Barbara Shaw | Nike | Greater China Media Manager |
| Stacy Juan | Nike | Greater China Assistant Media Manager |
| Julian Leeper | Mindshare | Planning Partner |
| Jennifer Zhu | Kinetic | Business Director |
| Pierre Xu | Kinetic | Director |
| Shawn Kai | Weiden + Kennedy | Account manager |
While Nike’s usual NBA super stars spokespersons are highly popular in China, people who follow NBA super stars are hardcore basketball fans already. If you are not into basketball, Kevin Durant probably means some American basketball player, but you won’t go out and watch basketball game for him. Nike needs to create new source of inspiration.
48 schools entered the game, and 12 high schools entered the city-level semi finals. Leading up to the semi-finals, we created outdoor murals featuring all the semi final teams right outside of the high schools. The murals features professionally taken photos of the players, decorated the Nike way. On the No.1 sports platform Tencent Sports, the team scores were scrolling front and center next to all the NBA team scores. Across top sports news apps we featured the games as well as MVPs from each game, again, next to news of all the top sports stars and teams. The players and games are also featured in China’s national sports channel and local sports TV station. We livestreamed the finals and semi-finals on Tencent for those who can’t get in and to amplify the impact. Professional basketball commentators as well as top basketball stars narrated each livestreaming game.
The finals attracted 2.8 million views on Tencent, that’s more than views on CCTV for any NBA game. Games were engaging and inspired 118,000 comments during game on Tencent. Social media exploded as well, with 61 million viewership on the topic. The hype was soon picked up by mainstream sports channels. The players and games were featured in China’s national sports channel CCTV 5 as well as local sports TV stations.
We found an amazing insight - Many people’s first basketball experience and gateway to become a basketball fan is not any NBA game, it’s at their high school basketball match. Seeing a peer play, compete and win is powerful and much more emotional. It was clear – we need to make this new generation of players heroes. We organized the Nike High School Basketball League, and it’s not your typical high school basketball game.
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