Partner Content: London’s the best city on Earth, innit?

Communication

Mobile

Silver Lion

Nothing beats a Londoner

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy London

Client: Nike

 

Challenge for ad agencies everywhere: to be properly authentic to a youth audience without being ‘extra’. 

 

But Wieden + Kennedy London’s collaboration with US sports apparel giant Nike nailed it: using great creative and a perfect understanding of its audience to reach out to and engage kids in inner city London.

 

It didn’t need a lot of dollar either: in fact, it spurned big-buck TV-led advertising for this youth-targeted mobile campaign, in a brilliantly authentic piece of filmmaking.

 

Using mobile as the target channel was a genius move, because show me a kid that doesn’t have a smartphone or consumes every bit of media on the medium. 

 

The three-minute film takes you on a journey of the UK capital, traveling the streets of London, with the likes of local rapper Giggs and grime star Skepta, while famous faces from the world of sport pop up in low-key ways. 

 

Cameos from England's soccer manager Gareth Southgate playing God, Olympic champ runner Mo Farah and female soccer player Steph Houghton, give the ad a neat balance of the aspirational and authentic, balancing humor with an understanding of its audience that helped it successfully trend across social. 

 

The ad generated 4.6m views on YouTube within a week of going live – impressive.

 

How to tell authentic stories by partnering with the savviest UK creative minds