As the host nation of the World Cup - Nike Russia had a vested interest in owning the conversation around the tournament. But as Nike was not an official sponsor of the event, we needed to hijack the conversation.

Instead of telling stories of professional footballers we wanted to shine a spotlight on the journey and mindset of real Russian Footballers and the street pitches they call home.

The campaign was based around the idea of ‘Never Ask’. In a country as restrictive as Russia, asking for permission is a fool’s errand, so we encouraged the new generation of pioneering Russian sports people never to ask in the first place.

As the host nation of the World Cup - Nike Russia had a vested interest in owning the conversation around the tournament. Although not an official sponsor of the event - that meant we needed to hijack the conversation. So instead of telling stories of professional footballers we wanted to shine a spotlight on the journey and mindset of real Russian Footballers and the street pitches they call home.

We told a street footballer’s story on the streets themselves. Hundreds of pieces of street art were posted on Korobkas (the outdoor football cage where most Russian kids learn how to play football) across Moscow in a guerilla outdoor campaign that took over the city.

We leveraged a variety of placements that integrated our campaign into the football experience, ranging from the floor of a korobka to a large format wall beside it, to posters surrounding the perimeter of the pitch.

Each piece of artwork was also a single frame of animation that when stitched together became a highly viral film.

Our Street Story campaign was shared online by world cup footballers, celebrities and olympians alike, and garnered 700M earned impressions in over 150 publications - all seeing our film go viral and rack up over 5 million views.

Our 240+ OOH executions across Moscow and the resulting film, all worked to catapult Nike to Russia’s #1 brand during the World Cup (despite not being an official sponsor).