Nike needed to distance itself from Adidas as the world’s number one football brand.

Our strategy was to create entertainment that could span three months instead of a mere ad campaign. We started with a point of view on football—inspiring footballers to be fearless even when pressure is greatest.

At the height of football season, we launched with Men in the Arena. It showed athletes preparing for a big game despite external distractions and pressures.

We followed up with the launch of Winner Stays. Then on the eve of World Cup, we launched The Last Game, an animated film showing how Nike’s athletes saved the world from predictable football. The animated world was also used to celebrate on-pitch success as it happened. Fans were also invited to create their own content using the environments from our film.

Results were off the charts, with unprecedented online engagement and exceptional sales.

Zlatan’s Risk Taking Take on The Day was how Nike could respond to football’s biggest moments in real time.

Each day, CGI Zlatan was Nike’s Risk Everything correspondent, commenting on the tournament. Each night Zlatan was on ESPN’s SportsCenter. He answered questions online when people used the hashtag #AskZlatan and hosted the first-ever animated live Google Hangout.

Nearly 200 videos were produced during the tournament by a team of writers and animators. Using rigs created for the event we were able to go from brief to concept to animation and posting in an hour.

Zlatan’s Risk Taking Take on the Day garnered over 25 million views world wide including over 700,000 viewers on the live Google Hangout On Air.

The endeavor anchored Nike Football’s real time efforts throughout the World Cup. It established an ongoing content piece that was integral to the Risk Everything campaign.

Overall, the campaign helped grow Nike Football’s community by six million followers and led to a million downloads of the Nike Football app.