The Man that Motivated Michael Jordan

I always enjoy visiting the Nike website and discovering their new campaigns for their various product lines. I came across one the other day, which is targeted at continuing the growth of the almighty Air Jordan brand.

Nike and their agency partner Wieden+Kennedy, NY (W+K NY) saw a need to ramp up marketing efforts for Air Jordan in order to reach the youth of the basketball market. They felt that since Michael Jordan had been out of the game for awhile now, it was imperative to find a way to stay in the minds of those new to the game.

They came up with a brilliant idea, I think, that doesn’t use the Nike or Air Jordan Logo. Instead, they went with Leroy Smith, the man that motivated Michael Jordan. Leroy Smith is the individual that took Michael Jordan’s spot on his Junior Varsity team in high school, which in turn motivated Jordan to work harder and become the player that we all remember him as. Nike & W+K NY utilized Google AdWord’s content and search network to reach the right audience with both image and text ads.

The Result: The campaign ran for 6 weeks. It generated 188 million impressions & 296,000 clicks!

You can check out the full story on Google’s Agency Ad Solutions Blog.