During research, we found that the pace at which young Londoners lived and consumed media was unparalleled. Constantly consuming bite-sized content, on the go. The myth of ‘short attention spans’ not only underestimates them, it misleads clients and creative marketing teams. This is a generation who are masterful curators & viewers of content. They consume long-form media too, but our job is to give them a compelling (and fast) reason to consume it.

To engage them, content needed to be exciting and relevant; not just to London but to specific neighbourhoods in London. We needed to deliver it in a channel that would grab their attention, feel authentic and in a moment that mattered to them.

London-only media ran during February half-term (identified as a moment that mattered) on TV, Snapchat, Instagram, Xbox, YouTube, native digital, mobile and cinema (the 180-second ‘silver spot’ before Black Panther, the highest-grossing February film in history).

At the heart of the campaign were short video stories about real young Londoners. These worked both as a series and in isolation. We tailored the first story someone saw, and the platform it launched on, to the user’s geolocation. This first instalment was designed to grab attention and encourage click-through. But users were free to choose when to view the next instalment.

With 29 million completed views, many did choose to ‘tap to advance’. We deepened our understanding of the campaign, providing a suite of social assets to help supercharge engagement. These included never-before-seen sticker-packs on Snapchat, Nike London Avatars in Xbox and endorsements from icons such as Skepta and Mo Farah.

The campaign’s metrics surpassed client & agency expectations. Swipe rates on Snapchat were two times higher than the benchmark. On Instagram, the swipe rate was ten times the benchmark. On YouTube, those viewing the full three minutes were almost 10% more likely to consider purchasing Nike.

Remember the problem of wavering brand affinity? The true success of this campaign was its influence on addressing exactly that. Brand affinity increased (“Nike understands the community I live in” increased by 7%. The percentage saying, “Nike understands people like me”, increased by 6%.) Brand awareness increased by 7% and brand preference by 3%. In some London boroughs, there was more than a 200% increase in the volume of brand mentions. This proves that after a dynamic 2-week campaign, young Londoners could ‘see, touch and feel’ the brand once more.