The idea: remake history with a new generation of athletes. First we introduced teens to Jordan at a live event during NBA All-Star Weekend, where they reenacted his biggest career moments – wearing his shoes and jersey and shooting in the face of live defenders. That weekend, we released a video of the event along with a coordinated social campaign featuring archival imagery of Jordan, and inspired thousands of teens and professional athletes, like Usain Bolt and Serena Williams, to show us how they #BeLikeMike. The best were set to the original commercial’s music and helped recreate the decades-old ad.

The combination of events, real-time support, video releases, user- generated social engagements and inclusion of professional athletes, especially Michael Jordan, all contributed to an impressive six-week activation across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Each element broke through our audience’s social habits, making Jordan unmissable, and contributed to the Capstone remake. Featuring the best of 51,000 #BeLikeMike submissions – made by both amateur and professional athletes – and the original spot’s popular song created both an emotional anthem of being the best you can be and also proved Jordan’s still able to inspire athletes to be like him decades after his reign.

In the end, we not only recaptured the original spot’s success but also contributed to what is now Gatorade’s most viewed campaign in its history.

+ The day the Capstone video launched, it garnered 1.2 million views and 57 million impressions

+ Capstone claimed 13-22% higher breakthrough awareness than Gatorade’s two prior successful campaigns

+ Hit 80% brand recall among teen athlete audience

+ Of all campaign elements, Capstone video made audience feel most inspired, with an 11% lift

+ More than 51,000 teens and professional athletes submitted #BeLikeMike video and images