After being dead and buried at 3:1 down, the Cleveland Cavaliers came back to make history by winning the 2016 NBA Finals and bringing back Cleveland’s first major sports championship in more than 50 years – and sponsor Nike marked the occasion with ‘Worth the Wait’.
The minute-long TV commercial, developed with agency Wieden + Kennedy, features fans of all ages from around Cleveland and players (including MVP and Nike ambassador LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love) celebrating their triumph.
Rolled out on 19 June, in quick response to the Game 7 win, the idea is that the city can finally rejoice and celebrate, but the key to the creative’s emotional power is that the fans are so stunned that they are simply speechless.
The ad was initially posted on Nike’s YouTube channel
and simultaneously amplified socially (naturally).
#AlwaysBelievehttps://t.co/5dZ2LIRzaI
— Nike (@Nike) June 20, 2016
Thew campaign activates Nike’s new deal with the team: which came late last year when Nike penned an exclusive partnership to replace Adidas as the kit sponsor for all NBA teams in exclusive eight-year deal worth more than $1bn and which includes having its logo on all kits.
It also promotes its primary basketball brand player endorser James (with whom it signed a lifetime sponsorship deal in late 2015), as well as sidekick Kyrie Irving who is also being one of Nike’s leading sports athlete ambassadors.
The spot also sees the Portland based sportswear giant have the last word in its NBA Playoff battle with rival upstart Under Armour – who’s shoes for star endorsers and Warriors’ team leader Steph Curry have been a hot topic throughout the Finals.
Comment
The Cavaliers became the city’s first professional sports team to bring back a championship to Cleveland since the 1964 Cleveland Browns won the NFL championship game.
This kind of victory celebration spot – with its pace and production approach isn’t exactly new – but it is certainly effective: it racked up 4,951,001 YouTube views, plus 67,000 likes and 56,000 retweets on Twitter in 48 hours.
It follows in the footsteps of Nike’s previous LeBron-led Cleveland basketball campaigns – such as its powerful ‘Together’ campaign when prodigal son James returned to his hometown team (see case studyhttps://www.activative.co.uk/2014/11/04/nike-together-celebrates-lebron-james-cleveland-homecoming/).
Mind you, it’s not our favourite ‘it’s been a long wait, but it was worth it’ celebratory sports spot we’ve seen.
We prefer the similar, but somewhat more authentic ad by Wimbledon sponsor Robinsons who’s BBH campaign finally got the ending it needed after its third year on-air when Andy Murray became the first British man to win Wimbledon for 77 years (see case study).
Let’s hope Chicago Cubs sponsors and their creative agencies are working on something truly wonderful this year?
Links
Nike YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/nike
Nike Twitter:
Nike Facebook:
Nike Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/nike/
Nike Google+:
https://plus.google.com/u/1/+nike/videos
Nike Web:
