Nike: Language Of Football, 1

Credits & Description:

Category: Entertainment
Media: Print, Online, OOH
Agency: AKQA
Client: Nike
Brand: Nike
Company: AKQA, LONDON
Target: UK · Europe, Middle East & Africa
International Executive Creative Director: Duan Evans, AKQA
Creative Director: Davor Krvavac, AKQA
Design Director: Carlos Matias, AKQA
Senior Art Director: Pedro Villas Boas, AKQA
Senior Designer: Jose Paz, AKQA
Senior Designer: Lionel Agbadou, AKQA
Associate Project Director: Chris Yew, AKQA
Associate Production Director: Ian Applegate , AKQA
Senior Account Manager: Andrew Freshwater, AKQA
International Managing Director: Geoff Northcott, AKQA
Languages: English (UK), English (US), Portuguese (Brazil)
Objectives: Awareness, Offline Traffic, This Was A Global Campaign
Tags: Entertainment, Europe, Middle East & Africa, English (UK), English (US), Portuguese (Brazil), Awareness, Offline Traffic, Print, Online, OOH  
Campaign Description
Nike’s 2014 World Cup objective was to be the most talked about brand during the tournament. Our brief was to establish Nike’s ‘Risk Everything’ football attitude and dominate the social conversation to drive downloads of the new Nike Football App.
We began with an insight - teenagers around the world communicate visually with emoji, gifs, and stickers. So instead of talking to our teen audience, we gave them a new visual language, to talk football to each other. We invented Nike’s Language of Football, an original set of emoji and digital stickers that transcends language and culture.
We created a distinct art-direction fusing football with the aesthetics and attitude of a rock rebel, a style that perfectly expressed Nike’s ‘Risk Everything’ message. We then defined our universal football glossary, and designed emoji and animated stickers to represent each word.
Campaign Goals
We defined our universal football glossary, and designed emoji and animated stickers to create an entirely unique digital language. We released Language of Football as a Nike sticker pack in Facebook Messenger and as a native emoji keyboard in the new Nike Football App. The language featured in social content, individual branding for events in 28 countries, and on pitch-sized reactive LED walls. It also featured in retail and on limited edition product.
Nike’s Language of Football allowed our audience to communicate with each other and with us in a totally new way that is specific to the sport the adore. What would usually take 5-10 seconds to type, they could now say in less than a second - and when you’re reacting to moments on the pitch, every second counts. We successfully combined natural user behavior, brand loyalty and the emotional twists and turns of the sport in a single digital execution, brought to life on Facebook.
Campaign Performance
We gave our audience the respect they deserve, and instead of hijacking their passion for football, we gave them a new language to express it. We tapped into what’s important to our community – fresh and easy ways to express themselves, the game, and endless banter.
In the first 20 days of the World Cup, 14.4 million users sent 44 million stickers on Facebook, averaging over 2 millions sends daily. For what was Nike’s first “mobile World Cup’, we saw an opportunity to embed ourselves seamlessly into the digital lives of our audience. Without polluting their newsfeeds, we made ourselves relevant.
The Language of Football is what powered user communication within the Nike Football App and, when it launched on the final weekend of the World Cup, our unique language helped the app reach 1 million downloads in record time, making it the fastest growing app in Nike’s history.