McKinney

McKinney for Nike.

Nike is pretty much synonymous with Weiden + Kennedy as far as their advertising is concerned. Nike's history with Weiden + Kennedy has been so long-lasting because W + K continues to produce work that is incredibly creative and motivating, so why did Nike even stray to McKinney at all? The resulting spot from McKinney completely lacks the artistry and revolutionary call-to-action that W + K is well-known for incorporating into their work for Nike.

This is a 60 second spot, but I spent about the first 55 seconds trying to figure out what was going on. The name of the spot is Gamechangers, but the visuals and the copy kind of just mismatch together in a sloppy attempt to tell people not to use so much gas. About halfway through the ad, McKinney attempts to put everything into perspective with the clincher, "Maybe streets should be for sports." Umm...no. Maybe streets should just be used for driving, the way they were constructed for use.

What is going on in this spot is that there are too many ideas at work. There is an obvious disconnect between the notion of encouraging people to use less gas and not pollute the earth so much, and then there is the entirely disparate idea of transforming streets into arenas for sport, or being a "gamechanger." The sport concept seems to be a bit of an after thought; there should be some logical reasoning for mentioning gas usage and polluting the earth in a Nike ad, but there is nothing to be said for that here. It would have made more sense to use a sport like running or cycling in a commercial promoting alternatives to gas-guzzling; playing in the streets instead of driving on them doesn't really make people want to trade in their cars. The key is relevance, which is lacking in this ad. Another thought would have been to take the whole gas/pollution concept out and just stick to the idea of using your imagination to change up sports or games; one idea is all you have time for in a 30 or 60 second spot. It should be noted that this was the only work I found from Nike on McKinney's website, so this was a chance happening and Nike should know better.