Nike
NULLA PUO FERMARCI
CHALLENGE
Italy has a specific and significant problem with its perception of sportswomen.
They are rarely seen or celebrated. When they are, they’re stereotyped, sexualised and objectified. So much so that football pundit Fulvio Collovati claimed on national TV that women cannot “speak about tactics” since a woman “doesn’t understand tactics like a man”. Yes, in 2019.
In Milan – a key Nike city – 55% of women between 14 and 24 don’t do any sport at all. Why would they, when female sporting heroes are either invisible, objectified or vilified as unfeminine?
Nike challenged us to get 150,000 young Milanese women moving by using social, in a way that would cement the brand’s status as the champion of women in sport – on every level. Nike wanted a campaign that would not only be talked about and engaged with, but would also create real-world action with far-reaching effects.
STRATEGY
Our research suggested that women felt well-intended empowerment messaging from sport brands was condescending. So what was the right message for 2019?
In Milan, we asked our audience an important question – if they weren’t playing sport, what were they doing? The stats told us they spent most time on social media. But further exploration showed they weren't wasting time with passive scrolling.
A new social currency had developed alongside the rise of TikTok. Young women were challenging one another to perform intricate dance routines. And they were taking up the challenge, in their thousands.
We realised we'd been guilty of looking through the Nike lens of what "sport" meant, not what it meant to our audience. To get young women applying their abilities to "sport" as we saw it, Nike needed to replicate the spirit of fun and connectivity that Milanese women were finding in TikTok dance routines.
CREATIVE IDEA
A super-fun, hyper-engaging digital platform for Nike Italy using the “now you have a go” spirit of TikTok to get the women of Milan moving.
Women can’t get into sport at a high level if they don’t start out at a low level – so we devised a campaign that gave Italian women an entry into physical fitness that was all about fun, dance and participation; led by their social heroes and choreographed by the best female athletes in Italy.
‘Nulla Puo Fermarci’ uses TikTok and Instagram as a platform for all women (not just professional athletes) to stand up and show off their physical abilities via a series of dance challenges – choreographed from authentic sporting moves.
EXECUTION
In December, we identified a team of superstar female athletes who could share their world-class sporting skills. We joined them with four Milanese girls – each a TikTok and Instagram phenomenon in their own right.
In early January, the athletes taught the influencers some incredible sporting moves, and the girls turned those moves into challenge routines which they posted on TikTok in February – a call to arms to their followers to copy their moves and learn some skills in the process.
The first TikTok challenge, #basketbeat, featured 16-year-old twin sisters Kessy and Mely, schoolgirls born and raised in Milan, with an incredible TikTok following of over 4.6m. They met female basketball star Olbis Futo Andrè and in their #basketbeat challenge they attempt a complex yet addictive basketball routine.
Fellow TikTok stars, or ‘Musers’, setting challenges included music student Virginia Montemaggi (3.5m followers) tackling a football routine inspired by Juventus player Benedetta Glionna, and 16-year-old Martina Picardi (1.7m followers) take on a boxing riff inspired by Federica Monacelli.
We then co-developed TikTok's first-ever campaign page and supported with in-platform ads. It's the biggest branded takeover of the platform yet.
RESULTS
100M+
Views on Tik tok
540k+ likes for the three challenges
150k+ conversations about the campaign on social channels.
46.7K
Challenges completed
150,000 young Milanese women on their way to getting active.
320+
Articles written about the campaign.
In Italy's biggest and most conservative newspapers/
For a readership of 600 million.
