The Theory: Nike Rise Campaign

Updated: Nov 8, 2018

One of the most original and influential digital campaigns in recent years was Nike RISE. China has an unrivalled passion for basketball and Nike set out to create an opportunity that would inspire their next wave of players to rise to new heights.

Grassroots players in greater China were asked to submit short basketball themed videos. Out of millions of submissions just thirty players were drafted from a region-wide search to be mentored by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Nike Rise House of Mamba, the world’s first interactive LED basketball court, challenged and trained the final team using motion-tracking drills and reactive visualisation to create a pinnacle experience, teach the fundamentals of basketball and push the boundaries of sports training.

The First Social Basketball Reality Show

These players would then go through several heats of what was the first social basketball reality show, with the winners playing at the Nike World Basketball Festival in Barcelona. The RISE Journey was broadcast on QQ, Yahoo (Taiwan) and Fanpiece (Hong Kong). One new episode of the inspiring tale was released every week, for 6 weeks.

An emotional finale saw three players chosen to represent China at the World Streetball Championships. RISE captured the imagination of a nation and beyond, inspiring kids across the world to play the game.

The Visuals

AKQA approached Shotopop to work closely with them in developing the visual style to support the campaign. The visuals were to embody the idea of the symbolic RISE, the journey of the players through the series of events and online episodes.

A main graphic was created to be the emblem of the RISE campaign, as well as supporting lockups for Lebron and Kobe. These were then animated and made into a library of graphic overlays that could be used on-court, on-screen and on-line.