As the North Star to our effort above, this season was all about the World Cup and Nike’s season hinged on connecting to this global gathering. The anthem: Just Play. Of course, this was January (in Portland) so we set our sights on warmer climates. Somewhere where Global Football was in the DNA of the culture itself. After an extensive city search globally, we locked eyes with Uruguay.
Leveraging our global network of foreign country producers, we spun up a team of location scouts within a matter of days. Following a successful pre-scout, our locations were set, and we’re off to the races. We invested deeply in research, launching a multi-winged, global talent search with scouts on the ground in multiple cities, casting directors, social media scouting, and more. Our cast and crew galvanized as we made arrangements to bring hundreds of people and mountains of equipment from every corner of the globe.
When it’s finally time for everything to pass through a lens, who should hold the camera? We partnered with some of the most gifted and thoughtful image makers around: Ben, Jake, and Jerry. The city of Montevideo was perfect in every way except one little catch, there’s no photo studio large enough to host our studio shoot. So, we befriend a local school gymnasium and build 3 of our own sets from scratch. This temporary stage functioned as our in-studio hub, complimenting our on-location shoot masterfully.
All of this became possible because of trust between partners to create something larger than the individuals involved. We created a foundation of mutual respect and inspiration with our powerful production partners at Nike. Through this bond we were able to seamlessly navigate a hurricane of input from creative departments around the world. In the end, we couldn’t be happier with the result.
