Online & Digital

Take The City

Issue 20 | September 2011

Agency

Boondoggle (Leuven & Amsterdam)

Creative Team

Creative Directors: Stef Selfslagh, Vincent Jansen, Gaston Serpenti; Creatives: Bart Gielen, Paul Popelier, Pieter Caeys, Gaston Serpenti, Brett Mcmanus, Carlos Furnari; Creative Technologist: Nikolas Sterck; Interaction Design: Joris Groen

Production Team

Design: Nancy Vanoppen, Geert Van Grunderbeek, Sven Verfaille, Demmy Onink; Conversation Management: Simon van Oldenbeek; Strategy: Jesse Wynants, Tom de Bruyne, Astrid Groenewegen; Account Manager: Toon De Baere; Client Services Director: Inge Vander Velpen; Multimedia Developer: Jelle Vuylsteke; IT Director: Vincent Deportere; Technical Developer: Niels Dehaes; Production Company: Random ; Photography: Bill Tanaka

Other Credits

Client Contact: Tad Greenough, Nortpool Furlani, Hans de Leeuw, Rachel Wouters, Vincent Fierens

Date

Late 2010

Background

Running. For many, it's their favorite waste of time. It keeps them in shape... it makes sure they can fit in that new, way-too-tight dress, it helps them stay young, it's healthy and it's also utterly... boring.

Nike Running Belgium and Nike Running Holland wanted more fun in running.

The challenge was to get people to reclaim the streets instead of running on tracks and treadmills.

Idea

The 'Take the city' graffiti challenge was an ingenious Facebook application that allowed runners to draw running routes on satellite pictures of their cities and towns. But not just shapeless running routes, which followed the contours of the map. They could put together routes in creative shapes. Surprising routes were designed such as ‘The Fries’, ‘The Butterfly’, ‘Pacman’ and even ‘The Space Invader’.

People could print their routes, share them through mail, Facebook and Twitter, and invite friends for a run through Facebook events.

To support the campaign offline, posters were put up alongside the routes depicted. Images of all runs were beamed around town. To complete the loop, the online community was turned into an offline community as well with 'The Nike Runhouse', a place where they could meet, create group runs and reload with beer, pizza and shows.

Results

As well as generating much PR, the 'likes' on the Facebook page rocketed. More than 10,000 youngsters joined the Nike Running Club on Facebook, where 329 of them created their own, unique graffiti run. A new running club was born and with it more fun and more individual ways of running.

Our Thoughts

It becomes increasingly problematic to know which categories campaigns should belong to. This is probably an integrated idea buit because the lynchpin of it is Facebook, we have put it in Digital.

If you look at Cannes this year, most of the more innovative campaigns are the same, sitting on top of rather than within categories.

As advertising moves in new directions, Nike continues to be at the forefront, a global brand that understands perfectly the importance of being local.