Background

2020 is a year marked by the pandemic and its unprecedented challenges; one of the more obvious being the sudden isolation from one another. Consequently, many in China have deprioritized sports or physical activity due to the loss of a conducive sports environment and a loss of motivation that comes from enjoying sports as a group activity. Recognizing that, Nike wanted to find a way to bring sports and positivity back into the lives of everyday athletes as we believe sports is one way to help everyone tide through this difficult time and emerge stronger together.

Describe the strategy

The target audiences are everyday athletes and sports lovers that have a regular habit of doing sports or exercising. The quarantine period has meant that these people could no longer do their usual sports at their usual grounds and any form of social connection in sports would be impossible. As social media became the main source of social interaction during the pandemic, we picked Tik Tok to launch our campaign due to its high user traffic and video editing functions that is compatible with the interface we have designed and reaching the maximum number of users in China. Our approach was to leverage the influence of social media to deliver positivity and the motivation to continue exercising during quarantine in order to stay physically and mentally fit. Through a creative digital activation, we can hurdle over the walls of isolation and reconnect people physically by doing sports together.

Describe the execution

Rallying under the hashtag of #YouCantStopUs, we collaborated with national sports athletes, celebrities, and sports influencers to launch the Contactless Partner Workouts on Tik Tok in the beginning of April. With a specially designed split-screen interface, users could co-create seamless “duet” workout videos with our sports personalities or with their own friends and family. To further inspire people to join the biggest partner workout ever, we produced a mini-podcast series throughout the entire April featuring China women's national team footballer Wang Shuang and six other influencers who represented different sports communities to share their stories of perseverance and dedication, as well as words of encouragement for everyone in quarantine.

List the results

This campaign won positive reviews across major Chinese social media platforms including Tik Tok, WeChat and Weibo. On last count, it garnered over 4 billion views on Tik Tok and generated over 700 thousand user-created videos; a participation rate 1.5 times higher than the industry benchmark. Further more, our athlete podcast series on WeChat reached over 246,000 total views and over 80% of consumers resonated with our campaign message. Our campaign had an additional call-to-action and the high level of engagement was further reflected on the Nike Training Club app where it recorded higher than usual numbers of daily updates on users' workout progress. The Contactless Partner Workouts gave people the peer motivation to do sports at home and re-established an important human connection that we all need during this isolation period.