The brief's objective was to help increase sports participation and connect with the youth on a deeper level. Nike has seen a significant drop-off in sports amongst the Japanese youth (15-18yr) due to their days being consumed by the long study hours they need to dedicate to prepare for college entrance exams. The brief was not just to raise awareness but to provide them with tools to find a better life balance and improve their mental health, which is at risk due to academic pressure, tying the solution back to sports.

Working with ATARASHII GAKKO!, a Japanese band dressed in school uniforms whose mission is to subvert the boring everyday and expectations to blend in and be perfect, we created an original track and music video to get students up and moving—in the middle of their classes.The resulting track, called “WOO! GO!” talks to the pressure students face and encourages them to get up and get moving—all done in the rebellious, cheeky tone of the band. The launch film for Nike Juku doubles as the music video for the single. In the film, ATARASHII GAKKO! invades a cram school and, along with Nike athletes, gets the students to dance, exercise and let off some steam, which lets them back to studying much more refreshed and engaged. From the music video, students are directed to try a Nike Juku study break in their own home or school.

Ongoing lock-downs, two years of COVID-19, but more importantly, the increased pressure to perform well at school in Japan has created a generation more overwhelmed than ever. Students have no free time between their classes, cram school (juku), or tutoring lessons. With the increased pressure and stress, the youth regularly only get six hours of sleep. As a result, sports get pushed to the sidelines, and their physical and mental well-being is suffering more than ever. Our strategy consisted on finding a way to prove students that sports can be beneficial for them beyond the physical side of it. Many studies revealed movement helps perform better physically and mentally. 12 minutes of exercise can improve concentration and reading ability for an hour. 10 minutes can improve test scores by 5.5%. The strategic task was to help the youth in their world of noise, giving them clarity and confidence through sport.

Nike Juku’s April launch is powered by Atarashii Gakko’s new collaborative digital single “WOO! GO!” in a full branded-everything approach. The song is the focal point of Nike Juku’s Welcome Film and 5x Study Break videos across Nike Japan and AG’s YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. “WOO! GO!” cover art is created by W+K Tokyo and used on all music streaming services (Apple Music, Spotify, etc). An upcoming TikTok Filter featuring the hook makes it even more fun and easy to move with NIke Juku.

In less than one week, we were able to receive over 182K organic impressions on our main hero film. We were able to reach a wide range of people through the utilization of the featured cast member’s channels. This helped to give people many entry points into both our main and supplementary films through both our owned and paid channels. There was a spike in views and impressions once paid media was launched that helped to increase awareness of our campaign to our core target audience.