ECCEAM Team — 3rd Part of Agency’s Series; Final Creative Branding Campaign “NIΚΗ’’

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AD DISCOVERY — CREATIVITY Stories by ADandPRLAB

7 min readJul 4, 2021

The Description

Heading to our fourth article and particularly, to our third part of these marketing-oriented series regarding our work during this semester. In this article we shall talk about the most crucial section of our work, which is the preparation and the after all launching of Nike’s new campaign, named “NIKH” based on our client’s preferences and needs.

Nike’s new campaign “NIKH” poster (shared on social media accounts of ECCEAM Team)

The campaign

It is of great importance that we mention our collaborations and marketing accomplishments with two of the colossal and trusted corporations: Google and Nike. After we evaluated, studied, and formed theories about the reasons behind Google’s general success, Nike reached out to us seeking assistance and further guidance so as to create its next influential campaign. We created an explicit whiteboard analyzing Nike’s structure, operation, marketing approaches and techniques, so as to find the brand positioning strategy and the “clarity of method”. Lastly, we formed a creative brief for the brand’s new campaign, where the idea of “ΝΙΚΗ” began, a digital-based marketing campaign, using as its main formats the world of mass communication media and as the campaign’s ambassador the 2016 Olympic gold mentalist Ekaterini Stefanidi.

Ekaterini Stefanidi as the “NIKH” campaign’s ambassador

So, our last project was about making the last impression or as one might say the last show. We decided to brainstorm altogether in order to pick the most suitable option for NIKE’s next big thing. After hours of discussion, ECCEAM Team found a way for NIKE to follow another path yet in the same, safe direction. Through the years, our client has been vocal about societal issues, such as racism, feminism and minorities, so we thought that the best possible result could come from combining all of this in one campaign. Consequently, we aimed at NIKE’s potential to promote not only the wear, but also the environment for arts and especially, dance. “ΝΙΚΗ” is all about bringing our client back to its greek roots, since the name NIKE was originated from the ancient Greek goddess “NIKH” (which stands for win). We utilized ECCEAM’s social media so as to emphasize on the importance of keeping up with the audience by posting cryptic messages for them to analyze and by raising questions for them to answer.

Two members of ECCEAM Team wearing Nike to aid the followers to understand the cryptic message of the emergence of the client’s brand name

After attracting their interest with several posts on our accounts “ΝΙΚΗ” came out with the assistance of its ambassador Ekaterini Stefanidi, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist. By indicting NIKE’s greek blood with the showcase of the greek sculpture “Winged Victory of Samothrace” and including performances of ancient greek dance to modern ones in collaboration with Retraced Theater and Death Rose Photography, our initials started to gain flesh and bones. Our campaign, “NIKH”, portrayed that the state of being a woman is art, while also spreading the message that the power a woman holds is based on what she owns within, accompanied by Miley Cyrus’ hit single “Mother’s Daughter”.

Retraced Theatre Group members posing for the feministic and the aesthetic campaign, “NIKH”

We promoted in fact an idea, a bold concept, helping our client enter a new marketing field. Only with the contribution of “Retraced theatre group” and the photographer under the name of “Death rose photography” could this campaign come together.

https://instagram.com/retraced_theatre_group?utm_medium=copy_link

https://instagram.com/death_rose_photography?utm_medium=copy_link

Its overall aesthetic was inspired by ancient Greece and we began from the name of the campaign “ΝΙΚΗ”, and mostly from the failure of ΠΙΚΣ, an unfortunate campaign released in June 2021 by Nike, which caused a lot of complaints and frustration. The brand’s intention was to honor the ancient Greek goddess of victory “NIKH” by using the original Greek name, but the team unfortunately mistranslated the word to “ΠΙΚΣ” instead of “NIKH”, raising a lot of questions and doubt about the company’s reliability, especially from the spectrum of the Greek community, leading to the brand’s name being slightly tarnished. Given the circumstances, Nike wanted to make up for the mistake and the misconception, and therefore, they contacted us for assistance and consultation, to form an innovative and revolutionary concept for the brand. The symbol of this campaign which is the artistic masterpiece of “Winged Victory of Samothrace”, or else in Greek NIKH, is a symbolic, strong goddess-like, female figure that has inspired and continues to inspire many individuals over the centuries, as an emblem of peace, fortune, and justice. NIKH’s project in all, combines the feminist movement with the historic past, tradition, and culture, in order to talk about female strength, beauty, vulnerability and grace, in the context of a creative environment of artistic expression.

Social Media Strategy

As for the social media, we used mainly four different platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tik- Tok. As for the last one goes, you may as well see that we introduced ourselves with a video, which gathered almost six hundred views, then a video of one of our mascots True, which surpassed one thousand views, in order to hop up on one of Tik-Tok trends so as to go viral before we started promoting the “NIKH” campaign with the last 2 videos, aiming at younger audience, something you can understand via our shared content.

On Instagram, we started teasing the campaign with three separate videos that declared that someone is coming and just for us to be clear, we gender — oriented Nike as a woman, in the inspiration of “The Winged Victory of Samothrace” and in support of the feminist movement. In our highlights, you shall see our shared cryptic messages which were defining that NIKE becomes NIKH. Since we captured the audience’s attention by trivia and mystery, we announced that we were collaborating with NIKE and as its ambassador the Olympic gold medalist Ekaterini Stefanidi. Afterwards, we shared some visual content in collaboration with “Death Rose Photography” and “Retraced Theatre Group” of us working, wearing NIKE and memes, right before we officially teased the footage of the campaign. On the last days before the official launch of the campaign, we focused on the “NIKH” project by sharing the official poster, which presented our collaborations. Lastly, we posted the official extended clip of our campaign in collaboration with TIK-TOK as the ultimate teaser, since we announced via insta-stories that the original project will be aired on Facebook Watch and only an extented clip will be shared in the other platforms, in collaboration with Tik-Tok.

Ecceam Team’s feed on Instagram, promoting “NIKH”

Additionally, if you visit our Facebook website, you will see the exclusive official video of NIKE’s new campaign “NIKH” in collaboration with Facebook and other extra promotions, we managed through this Facebook partnership. On Twitter now, as well as Facebook, we targeted adult audience, firms and organizations. We were short in what we were trying to express by stating only a few words, retweeting important posts, in form of Twitter’s formality, in order to make our statements clear in relevance to societal issues, while also using hashtags, such as #ecceamteam and #ecceam aiming at a possible trending. Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning that one can fing more professional information about ECCEAM team and NIKE on Linked In and on Google’s search engine, which leads you to our agency’s official site.

Official Campaign Video On Facebook Watch

Ecceam Team promoting the extented clip of “NIKH” campaign on Twitter

Conclusion

Nike wanted to expand its marketing pattern and touched on a different perspective, opting to try something new that would definitely impress its audience. In all, this campaign is not about athleticism in its literal sense, but Nike after our consultation decided to connect art and history, presenting that theatre and dancing, which are just a few examples of artistic expression, are in fact in their own ways a type of movement as well that require devotion and passion. Relying on our creative brief, Nike made the decision to try something innovative, taking advantage of its characteristic emotional marketing story and narration of the Hero, placing women at the center, their power and beauty combined with the ancient Greek history element. Also, as Nike always does, this campaign promotes authentic, emotional and socially conscious messages, such as feminism, focusing at the same time on the history and past.

Official Campaign Video exclusively on Facebook Watch down below;