As the NBA 2024 regular season drew to a close and a total solar eclipse occurred over the USA and Mexico, Nike ‘colluded with aliens’ to leverage its endorser partnership with new young French hoops phenom Victor Wembanyama via the release of a new player ambassador logo positioned as coming from another world which promotes his new Nike GT Hustle 2 alien shoe.
The logo, released by Nike on 8 April to coincide with the ‘Great North American Eclipse’ across the sportswear behemoth’s social channels, was creatively inspired by a Texas crop circle phenomenon – also, according to some, the work of otherworldly powers.
According to our (Nike) sources, the new logo was genuinely stamped onto a real crop field by an on=the-ground marketing team and that neither artificial intelligence (AI) nor Photoshop (other image editing programs are available) were used in its creative design.
The logo, which was unveiled on Instagram in a post with the copy “The total eclipse has just begun”, is a tribute from the brand to the young San Antonio Spurs centre who is hot favourite to be this season’s ‘NBA Rookie Of The Year’.
The logo is, of course, inspired by Wembanyama’s on-court nickname ‘Alien’: which was reportedly given to him by the league’s leading super star LeBron James back in 2022 whilst describing his phenomenal physical assets, hoops skills and personal qualities – which are ‘almost from another world’.
The young French hoops star has been a member of Nike’s endorser stable long before he arrived in the NBA and until recently had mostly worn conventional Nike GT Hustle kicks. But will now sport a pair of the alien customized GT Hustle 2s which aren’t due in store until May.
When most people had their eyes on the sky to contemplate the rare celestial event, Nike (perhaps under the influence of the M Night Shyamala movie Signs?) chose to reveal its latest player-specific logo.
Why?
Was this merely an opportunistic marketing tactic leveraging a mid-level news, cultural and celestial event, an example of a brand zigging when everyone else is zagging, or the result of out-of-this-world powers?
We will leave that up to you to decide.
Wembanyama looks set to become the eight active hoops player with whom Nike has created a signature shoe: alongside LeBron James, Ja Morant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Sabrina Ionescu.
The logo reveal is likely a ‘teaser’ ahead of the launch of an all-new Wembanyama signature shoe.