REINVENTING THE ATHLETE TOUR

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TitleREINVENTING THE ATHLETE TOUR
BrandNIKE
Product / ServiceKD9
CategoryA02. Durable Consumer Goods
EntrantMINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Idea Creation MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Media Placement MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Production MINDSHARE CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Production 2 TENCENT Shenzhen, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Julian Leeper Mindshare Partner
Selina Li Mindshare Planning Director
Danny Lee Nike Greater China Media Director
Joey Kang Mindshare Partner
Velvet Yuan Mindshare Associate
Vicky Huang Nike Greater China Senior Media Director
Barbara Shaw Nike Greater China Media Manager

The Campaign

The entire activation was centered on two critical insights. First, Kevin Durant (or KD) is crazy good at NBA2K Online. He’s even gone on national television to boast about it. And it's not always inevitable for a great on-court player to be a great video game player of the same sport. The NBA2K online game offered a brilliant platform to tap into every single basketball fan across the country. You really can’t overestimate its popularity in China – players are incredibly passionate, even recreating their in-game moves on the court. So we decided to give fans an incredible opportunity. We invited NBA2K online players to compete for the honor of representing the best of the best in China against Kevin Durant. This invitation to a genuine heads up battle with an NBA Superstar resonated absolutely with NBA2K1 players. And combining these passion points utterly reinvented athlete event model for Nike.

Creative Execution

KD issued his challenge: to play with China's top NBA2K Online player in the game and on the court, creating the world's largest basketball tournament. 463,000 players answered the challenge, all competing in the virtual tournament for a chance to play Kevin Durant head on. Gao Yang, the final winner, represented China in a live broadcast match up against KD, where the two players squared off in a best of three formats. The entire event was live streamed on China’s largest online sports channel, Tencent NBA, as well as broadcast directly to pinnacle digital out-of-home locations across Guangzhou. Throughout the broadcast, KD interacted with Nike Club members online, answering questions, sharing insights on his training methods, and even introduced a virtual pair of KD9’s, his brand new shoes, into the game.

The opportunity to directly engage with NBA superstar like Kevin Durant on their favorite platform drove unprecedented excitement among Chinese basketball fans and completely reinvented the athlete tour: • 463,000 fans competed for a chance to play Kevin Durant head on • 1.8 million fans tuned in live to watch the two-hour show via Tencent NBA and NBA2K Online, making it the #1 program on Tencent NBA for TWO ENTIRE WEEKS, driving 33 million views in total • 306,000 virtual KD9’s were downloaded and paid for in the game, converting an astonishing two-thirds of the tournament’s competitors • Kevin Durant’s new shoe, the KD9, became his fastest selling shoe yet for NIKE.

Nike wants to launch its new NBA superstar shoes KD9 and want to create a revolutionary event. Therefore, based on two unique insights on Kevin Durant and Online Game, we designed an unprecedented "Athelete tour" online to maximized reach and genuine fan engagement with the superstar.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Thus was born the ‘Play KD show’ – a once in a lifetime chance for a fan to play KD one-on-one Virtually and in the real world. By incorporating the virtual element we made sure that this was not just going to be about a handful of people hanging out with KD but a scale event. Millions of fans could watch the virtual battle anywhere as someone just like them took on a top NBA superstar. We partnered with the biggest basketball video game in the world, NBA2K Online. And broadcasted live across China on the number one basketball broadcaster Tencent NBA and the largest social network WeChat boasting a subscriber base of over 800 Mn Chinese people.