Campaign
Find Your Greatness - China Case Study
When Liu Xiang (China's most celebrated athlete) fell at the first hurdle of the 110m race
Liu Xiang's post: "Who dares to bet it all? Who dares to start over? To return when nothing is guaranteed? Who dares to jump? Who dares to fall? Greatness does."
NIKE CHINA: FIND YOUR GREATNESS (London Olympics 2012)
The Context:
Nike wanted to use the energy of the Olympics to challenge the traditional conventions of what 'greatness' means. The brief was to adapt the global campaign for China, but the moment was too big for us to simply do an adaptation.
The Challenge:
”Find Your Greatness” was impossible to translate. The word ‘greatness’ in Chinese is reserved only for those who bring pride and glory to the nation. (Emperor Qin, Chairman Mao, etc)
The goal:
Inspire people to find their own greatness by flipping the definition of ‘greatness’ on its head – from being about national pride to constantly striving to be the best at what you love to do.
The strategy:
Where the focus is on winning gold and perfection, Nike will use the new definition of greatness to celebrate the people who try.
The idea:
Find Your Greatness, no matter your result.
We created a never-been-done-before 17-day social media hijack that went live and viral during the Olympics. The hijack puts the focus back on the athletes who try, not just the athletes who win.
The result:
As a non-sponsor, Nike's voice was louder than any official sponsors of the Olympics. The hijack became a cultural phenomenon, users created memes out of it, brands made ads out of it.
Not only did Nike's online users grew by 1000% within 17 days, our final post in response to the fall of Liu Xiang (China's most celebrated athlete) gained a record-breaking 125,000 retweets in less than an hour.
Campaign Asia described this as, "resetting the social media benchmark."
Awards:
Shorty Awards - Best Use of Social Media (Winner)
Spikes Asia - Best Use of Social Media (Bronze)