The campaign - 'Fast' - was developed by Nike's advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy in Portland with production company Gerard de Thame Films.
Shot over a three-week period in the UK, the US, Spain and Italy, the television commercial shows a journey across sporting landscapes, seen from the point of view of competing athletes which embody popular sports, from cycling to wakeboarding.
According to a spokesperson for Gerard de Thame Films, the speed of the athletes resulted in a technically demanding shoot. "The most difficult scenes to shoot were the wake boarders and the runners. The wake boarders were complicated to capture because of the close proximity of the crew on the following boat, which was travelling at 30mph. For the running and bicycle scene, the rig was attached to a very thin and fast bike to fit and to film smoothly between the runners," said the spokesperson.
Performance and action were also the centre of Nike's 'Speed' campaign, launched in Asia-Pacific this month.
The multimedia campaign, which celebrates consumers' craving for speed, is running across TV, print, outdoor and online until the end of March.
Florance Yip, marketing manager at Nike, said: "The campaign idea is derived from the insight that speed is the most fundamental of all athletic abilities, and is something that everybody craves for, no matter which sports you do or even in other aspects of your life. Who wants to be slow?"
She added that the campaign, also developed by Wieden & Kennedy, aimed to reach consumers aged 15 to 19. It also underlined the company's innovation in performance gear. "The challenge was how we could 'dimensionise' speed in traditional or non-traditional media and really make the media vehicle convey speed to our target audience," said Yip. The brand used a 'moving' sneaker visual to inject a 3-D element to its print and outdoor ads.
