Wow

http://www.nikeusmedia.com/nike-sparq-training/media/my-better/V02.swf

I love Nike. They're a company that has no problems spending money to make artistic and creative commercials rather than resting on their laurels as a top brand in the athletic goods industry.

As a multimedia guy, I really appreciate the beauty of video and how it is different from still photography. I love still imagery, don't get me wrong, but each has it's own strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately it is up to us to choose what medium best expresses what we'd like to say.

Max

Max, that link is bad....

Really? Works fine for me. Try the root of the site.
http://www.nikeusmedia.com/nike-sparq-training

the 60 second spot is the one I like the most, but the 30 second spot is very well done also.

Max

I get a 404 error....Maybe it is in your cache?

I am completely lost, it works on 2 different browsers for me.

Last try, total root site
http://www.nikeusmedia.com

Good luck to all

Max

Works for me -- and that 60 sec spot is worth the loading time. Great find Max

Max,

Your second link worked for me (didn't try the third). Thanks. I agree--very cool and well made. Makes me wish I was a young athlete!

Nike, from what I've seen, is willing to spend the money to get their message out in the most creative of ways. The production value is off the charts. Over a dozen world class athletes, top notch editing, compositing, and filming. Throw in a Saul Williams track.

But that's not the point. The point is that if you look at some of the clips in the video, the imagery is mostly good execution and editing. You can take a lot of these as still images, and if you put it together, could create a photo story, or a slideshow.

Seeing any sort of media like this makes me want to leave work immediately and go hit up training facilities and start shooting.

Max

Edited by PShizzy on Mar 14, 2008 at 11:40 AM GMT (Reason: changed track artist)

Works fine for me too. Thanks Max. For more check out the blog post on it in the Portland Oregonian - http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2008/03/nike_cross_trainer_now_just_tr.html

It's also great to see Nike including some lacrosse players (Kyle Harrison and Ryan Powell). I know there are some shooters on this board that will love that.

Jerry

Nike has always been at the cutting edge of marketing, and advertising. How many times have they created a new catch phrase "Bo Knows" or overall concept. Once again an awesome piece by Nike. Thanks for sharing.

2nd link worked for me as well. The 60 second spot is awesome. I love how they shot the runner and dragster taking off...

Very cool indeed, thanks for pointing it out. Now where is that treadmill...

Mark

"My quick smells like french toast."

Edited by piga3863 on Mar 12, 2008 at 06:32 PM GMT

Mmmm.... Hope Solo.

Great spot.

Saw the 60-second spot on TV tonight.

So heres what I see when I look at this

Green. the color is in the tinting, it's in the unis, the backgrounds, objects, subjects, everything. Its the curtain behind LT2, the green mic foam when he's first starting off the interview. Why? a few thoughts come to mind. The matrix used that green tinting, to show off the future, to represent a certain grit and edge within that futurism. SPARQ is supposed to be Nike's answer to Under Armour and their going past clothing into footwear. Nike is trying to be the future of cross training, and their idea is that it's no longer cross training, its just training. Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness

Green is the color for life. Green is the color for go. Green is the color of the fields we play on.

The second thing that comes out at me is the training. They show everything from the usual field training, both alone and in groups, across all age groups, all sports, and all venues from the field to the track to a gym, to a hs gym to a hotel room. Pretty obvious why this is.

Certain scenes though go a little beyond the green or training and become environmental art. Look at :19, with someone throwing a ball at a net as shot through the net. Look at :21, Adrian Peterson (considered an amazing fast back with great power) is racing against a hot rod on a race track with a nice red and green basic background. at :48 they add a green and black frog jumping, a very symbolic image.

I used to collect Nike videos. Not sure where my old stash of videos is, but the concepts in their work has always astounded me because of the depth involved. It seems to me that they account for every detail in every frame of the work. I doubt there is anything there that isn't supposed to be there.

Max

PShizzy wrote:
So heres what I see when I look at this

Green. the color is in the tinting, it's in the unis, the backgrounds, objects, subjects, everything. Its the curtain behind LT2, the green mic foam when he's first starting off the interview. Why? a few thoughts come to mind. The matrix used that green tinting, to show off the future, to represent a certain grit and edge within that futurism. SPARQ is supposed to be Nike's answer to Under Armour and their going past clothing into footwear. Nike is trying to be the future of cross training, and their idea is that it's no longer cross training, its just training. Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness

Green is the color for life. Green is the color for go. Green is the color of the fields we play on.

The second thing that comes out at me is the training. They show everything from the usual field training, both alone and in groups, across all age groups, all sports, and all venues from the field to the track to a gym, to a hs gym to a hotel room. Pretty obvious why this is.

Certain scenes though go a little beyond the green or training and become environmental art. Look at :19, with someone throwing a ball at a net as shot through the net. Look at :21, Adrian Peterson (considered an amazing fast back with great power) is racing against a hot rod on a race track with a nice red and green basic background. at :48 they add a green and black frog jumping, a very symbolic image.

I used to collect Nike videos. Not sure where my old stash of videos is, but the concepts in their work has always astounded me because of the depth involved. It seems to me that they account for every detail in every frame of the work. I doubt there is anything there that isn't supposed to be there.

Max


Wow. I work for SPARQ, and that's probably one of the more insightful commentary i've heard about the company and the 60 second spot. Kudos to you, my friend.

piga3863, pshizzy deserves some swag for his insights. Something tight and clingy that would go with his red hat

piga3863 wrote:
PShizzy wrote:
So heres what I see when I look at this

Green. the color is in the tinting, it's in the unis, the backgrounds, objects, subjects, everything. Its the curtain behind LT2, the green mic foam when he's first starting off the interview. Why? a few thoughts come to mind. The matrix used that green tinting, to show off the future, to represent a certain grit and edge within that futurism. SPARQ is supposed to be Nike's answer to Under Armour and their going past clothing into footwear. Nike is trying to be the future of cross training, and their idea is that it's no longer cross training, its just training. Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness

Green is the color for life. Green is the color for go. Green is the color of the fields we play on.

The second thing that comes out at me is the training. They show everything from the usual field training, both alone and in groups, across all age groups, all sports, and all venues from the field to the track to a gym, to a hs gym to a hotel room. Pretty obvious why this is.

Certain scenes though go a little beyond the green or training and become environmental art. Look at :19, with someone throwing a ball at a net as shot through the net. Look at :21, Adrian Peterson (considered an amazing fast back with great power) is racing against a hot rod on a race track with a nice red and green basic background. at :48 they add a green and black frog jumping, a very symbolic image.

I used to collect Nike videos. Not sure where my old stash of videos is, but the concepts in their work has always astounded me because of the depth involved. It seems to me that they account for every detail in every frame of the work. I doubt there is anything there that isn't supposed to be there.

Max


Wow. I work for SPARQ, and that's probably one of the more insightful commentary i've heard about the company and the 60 second spot. Kudos to you, my friend.


Hope you own shares in SPARQ Inc. A Nike buyout followed by a huge push must be a nice windfall for everyone.

BTW, glad you liked the commentary.

Max

Max,

Outstanding commentary.

Oddly, I'm sitting here watching the Big East U of L Vs. Pitt hoops game, and just as I discovered this thread, the spot played on ESPN HD.

Agreed. Very well done.

Dennis

Well just 2 cents in on this.. some of that was shot here in austin texas i was there working for nike pr. i was there for the lacrosse shoot and there will be more of wnba harding start.. it was really cool how it was shot..

PShizzy, congrats! your commentary made it on OregonLive.com.

Nike SPARQ

OregonLive.com??

Max - you've now seen the top of the mountain!

(j/k folks)

It's funny how our little place here gets recognition from time to time, huh?

My only wish is that I'd caught that ellipsis error before having it published. Oh wait, on second thought, they truncated my comments, so it's not an error. whew.

Under Armour apparently didn't get much love for their ads. Makes sense though, if anyones seen it. For the sake of thoroughness, here's my take on Under Armour's ad, with a simple comparison to Nike, as seen on:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=27485757

First: Notice the fast paced overview shot with an orange colored world. Kind of post apocalyptic. Not a bad choice, but in this current culture of war and going environmental, I can't say it would be my first choice. Nike went green, which is a recurring theme given our fossil fuel dependency. Are they trying to make a statement? No, but they sure are latching onto a current topic. Advantage: Nike

Next up we see extreme examples of training. Someone chained up pulling a tire, someone with a cinder block in their hands, people sliding on large blocks of ice, in locales that feature large turbine jet engines, or back alleys, also in that orange tone. I don't know about you, but I don't train in abandoned military installations, nor do I aspire to. Contrast this with the star power Nike put in their ads, smartly interspersed with younger athletes, and it touches on our own childhood dreams of wanting to be a professional athlete, while softening the blow that is the separation created by the athletic prowess of those athletes in comparison to us. Advantage: Nike.

In their next part, Under Armour decides to almost completely steal from the Matrix by featuring a gathering of people as someone on a rooftop(?) speaks to them of being the future. Where's Lawrence Fishburn for this? I was half expecting the athletes to break out into pseudo-tribal dance.

Musically, Under Armour went with a quick beat, very digital and produced to push the pace of the training. The horns add a feeling of triumph as well as competition (think NFL films music). They did a fine job of cutting the music to the flow of the video, removing the horns to allow for spoken word, and using a fast paced sound cut to go from scene to scene (although I gotta admit, hearing it, I swore they borrowed it from the Matrix), but the music was a little generic, and didn't motivate me too much. The production value for it was there, but it only served as an element supporting the theme of the commercial. This is not necessarily bad, but the theme of the commercial didn't move me either.

Nike picked a Saul Williams track that not only supported the theme, but emphasized it and became a major part of it. I think Nike did a fine job of not picking someone mainstream, but also not going too far out there to find something original and inspired. Where Nike latched onto the green push that our culture is seeing in life, it decided to bring something to the table that we might not see everyday, but should now have an interest in. Saul Williams is probably seeing a lot of downloads on iTunes because of this spot. The words are very fitting, and the frenetic pace of the song along with the soundscape are almost made for this commercial. I can't believe it wasn't commissioned by Nike (like the Juelz Santana's "Second Coming" track for the Air Force 25 ad) Advantage: Nike

On paper, not seeing either commercial, I could see both being interesting. Under Armour spent some serious money to produce the ad, as well as to air it during the Super Bowl. They sure didn't try to fail. So why are they getting a bad rap.

In a word: Art vs technology. It's obvious that the creative force behind the Nike ad had a lot of artistic talent. If we look at the ad, it's very slick, but it's not overly produced. The entire commercial could have been done on film (I woudln't be surprised if it was). Overcranking (shooting fast fps to create a smooth slow motion effect), and some cross processing (or tinting) are about as glitzy as it gets. Nike made it's ad edgy by feel, not by show.

Under Armour's creative force probably consisted of 3D animators, and compositing artists. Not to say they aren't creative, but the art just isn't there in the same dosage as the Nike ad. I'd say every frame featured some compositing, and a large portion contained 3D. Under Armour wanted to show us gritty by overwhelming us with special effects. The feel just wasn't there, but they did put on a show.

It's that fundamental difference, art vs technology, that drives me to love the Nike ad whilst being apathetic towards the Under Armour ad. One plays to our emotions, the other to our visual senses.

Max

Max, don't have time to sit and write like have done, but I agree 100 percent.

The Under Armour ad is just a bunch of visuals, with no overall cohesive message, while the Nike ad has one: Nike makes you better, only that's hidden a bit with a wonderful artistic style.

I would buy Nike products based on this ad.

Full Disclosure: I currently own 1 Under Armour product and one Nike product: a shirt and a pair of shoes. Both work well.

I love Nike too, not just because they sponsor me