How Nike Built the Biggest World Cup Campaign Ever

0:10Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young.

0:25Now, unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that we're in the midst of the biggest World Cup ever. Fans are going all in, brands are placing big bets, and perhaps no company has gone bigger than Nike. Today, in a very special episode of The Debrief, I'm joined by Helena Thornton, Nike's VP of Global Brand Management, and my colleague Mike Sykes, BOF sports and fashion correspondent. Enjoy the episode.

0:51Helena, welcome to the Deerreef. Thank you. Welcome back. Thank you. So we're talking about the biggest World Cup ever. Yeah, it's been crazy, isn't it? It is crazy. And I want to set the scene a little bit. We're talking about a tournament being co-hosted across three countries. That's the U.S., Canada, Mexico. We're talking about 48 teams, up from 32. And they're playing more than 100 games across 39 days. I want to start with the most important question, which is, have you been watching? what is your favorite match so far? Oh my goodness, of course I've been watching I'm a very big England fan but honestly more importantly I know, I know, sorry, spoiler but most importantly I just, I love the game like I will watch every single game and what's so good in the office is we have our whole team together kind of in a space, this little hub for the tournament, there's tens of us watching every single game, kind of debating as a team, everyone's got a point of view you know, a team of, there's almost a supporter of every single one of the countries across the tournament.

1:52So, yeah, we're deep in it. I think my favorite game, though, it's got to be the England-Croatia game. England just looked so good. And I was, like, sat with my colleagues on the sofa. We're all, like, you know, wearing our England shirts. And we just all looked at each other and we're like, it's legit actually coming home. Oh, my gosh. And then, you know, we drew at Ghana this week, the following days. But in that moment, we were like, we think we're going to have a very special English football summer. So Mike and I are having FOMO because this is not the case. So we're not at BOF with a TV screen with the games on.

2:20But, Mike, you've been watching. What's been your favorite match? It has to be the U.S. versus Paraguay. I just don't think that I've seen the U.S. team be that dominant. And it actually gave me a little bit of hope. I'm one of those fans that are like, if they make it to the round of 16, then I will root for this team. Yeah. I will believe I will go fully in. But they almost got me. They almost got me right there. So I don't know. So for the uninitiated that's not, you know, tuning into sports as much as you and Mike might be, we say this is an epic World Cup for all the reasons I listed. But if someone's not watching or they haven't watched in the past, what immediately separates 2026 World Cup to you from 2018, 2022?

3:02How do you know this is a different one? Look, I think this moment you referenced, even just like having so many countries in the tournament naturally just gives it a totally different feel. but I also I give FIFA the US Mexico and Canada like huge credit you walk down every street and I've been in the US for the last couple weeks and I've been in Seattle for a game I was in Boston now I'm in New York and everybody just wants to stop and talk to you about the World Cup there is like real World Cup fever so I think the hosts have done an unbelievable job of kind of putting on the tournament but I think also the world really needed this if you just think about the world that we live in and it's just all so divided and there's all of this stuff that we all know that's going on.

3:39And yet football has just shown the true, true power of the game, I think, over the last few weeks. And I think the scenes, it doesn't matter what game you're looking at, but the fans all together. And I think, you know, I was just saying, I just came from Boston where I watched the England game. But like the city of Boston has just adopted Scotland all of a sudden. And all of a sudden, everyone's just like wearing kilts and it doesn't matter. They're like, are you Scottish? And I'm like, oh, I'm English. They're like, oh, sorry, we're Scotland fans here. Like, OK, OK. But I think the world just needed this thing to bring us all together.

4:07And there is no other sport other than football, really, that truly, truly is the global game. And to have 48 countries on show, I think it's just been everything we all needed this summer. I agree with you. And I have to say, we talked about this earlier, but I went from go sports and go red or whatever to like fully knowing the teams and fully being all in. Mike, what would you say separates this from what you've seen in the past, 2018, 2022? I just think that there's just a passion about the sport. And I think like Helena is saying, there is just this like larger unity right now that I'm seeing from people that I think like people just like kind of want to be connected.

4:48Like, I think we are so thirsty for this as a society. Like we just want to have like bring monoculture back in all these different ways. Right. And I think this is just like a really perfect way to do that and have all these people coalesce around this this one event. It's been really nice to watch so far. And to Helena's point, like the Boston-Scotland unity right now is crazy. Like I was watching Instagram videos of how they just like drank all the beer out of Boston, which is just like, I'm just like, I didn't even know that was a thing that was possible. But it's also so cool to see because everybody's just having a great time and it's really fun.

5:28I just love seeing all these like tweets and kind of memes that are just like everyone's now in panic because we're like so far through the World Cup. And it's like in six weeks, this won't be possible anymore. Like we're losing it by the day. And you're like, oh, we're all so nervous about how much football and if it was going to be too much. And now just no one wants it to end. Anticipating a collective depression when this is all over. So huge tournament, huge moment. Nike is a huge brand. Where and how does a conversation around your World Cup strategy begin? Like, obviously, you're on the brand management side.

5:59There's a whole product development conversation happening separately. But where does it start for you? And what is that conversation like? Yeah, look, I sit here working for a brand that has had such an iconic history at World Cups. And that is not lost on me or my team or any of us that get to touch it. Nike Football's nearly 30 years old, and we've kind of really built our brand around World Cups in the past. We've had brand new innovations. We've totally changed the game with how we've done kit designs. Our storytelling and advertising is, you know, I think is the reason many people work at Nike or even love Nike today.

6:32So these conversations happen, they happen years in advance. We sit down across all of the different departments at Nike and we talk about these big sport moments and like, what do we want to do to totally change the industry again? What is the athlete problem that we're solving for? Like what innovation can we push to allow an athlete to do something they never even believed that was possible, but we see potential in them that maybe other people haven't. So they start years ago. And then as we kind of like land on the innovations and kind of the bigger themes that we're going to play into. And then you get to two years out and kind of like my team's job really starts.

7:03We've like built the strategy and then we start thinking, OK, where do we think the world is at? What kind of tonality? What do the world what does the world need from Nike in this moment? What did you say? What was that conversation when you said, what do you think the world needs from Nike? What were some of the themes that come out of that conversation? Yeah, this year, I think we felt like the world needed to have a bit more fun. You know, I think the beauty of a brand like ours is we get to be on a whole spectrum of emotion. You've just seen it in New York here with the Knicks, right? And the just incredible end of just a drought of a championship coming home.

7:36And that really felt like we needed to be really emotive in the moment and kind of be of the city. But I think as we spoke about World Cup, we were like, with everything that's going on, Nike football's always had a joy to it. We kind of, you know, we founded the whole sport on this idea of like attacking creative, but most importantly, joyful, joyful football. And we were like, we think that's what's needed in this moment. So once we kind of knew that we were playing in joy and then we start looking around and we're like, OK, the sport is coming to North America and to Mexico. And there's kind of a different role there that the sport has versus maybe in Europe or even in Latin America.

8:08And we were like, so we want to lean into that. We want to make sure more people kind of fall in love with football or soccer than they ever have done before. So you've got this idea of joy. Then you want to lean in a little bit to this kind of Americana and in our case, Hollywood. And then those kind of things come together and we end up in a space that we got to with the universe that we built. So, Mike, you followed a lot of Nike's journey. You've looked at the products. You've been to activations. How would you describe to people that are not paying attention who may have missed it? Like what separates what Nike is doing from anything you've seen before?

8:41Yeah, I think the thing that is the big separator here is just kind of the scale of it all. I mean, the Rip the Script ad itself was just this massive, like, six-minute video. And I think we talked about this, Helena, when we had our quick chat on the phone. But like there was just like these like there are all these athletes that are involved. And then you've got like the celebrities and then like you've got the setting of Hollywood and like all of that on its own is just huge. But then like you follow up with with other ads and you follow up with activations and Toma is all a part of it. And it's just like all this sort of interconnected, interplayable, just like landscape.

9:23Right. That I think that, you know, in in different events, like I've seen Nike go big before, but I'm not quite sure that I've seen the brand ever go this this big, if that makes sense. Yeah. And, you know, it's obviously it's very intentional. I think we we wanted to make sure that in a moment like this of the scale of the moment and also what these moments mean for our brand, that we had something for everybody. And I think, Mike, exactly as you said, like at times we've we've come with a with a film or a story. And that's kind of been our way into a conversation, the start or the end of it.

9:55And, you know, we've told some of the most iconic stories in sport and in culture before. But this was a moment that we knew one story alone wouldn't meet the moment and the kind of gravitas of what we see of kind of a World Cup coming to our home soil. So it was very deliberate to have all of these different things across 12 weeks within this universe, whether it be kind of the activation side around the community, Toma, whether it be product innovation and Mercurial and the team, the national team kits that we launched, whether it be Rip the Script and the kind of iconic advertising storytelling that we've done, or whether it be done all the stuff that we've been doing with our collaborators, you know, and kind of those kits.

10:32It was very deliberate to make sure that we could actually meet the seismic nature of World Cup 26. I have to double click on Rip the Script. We're not going to move on that quickly. This is like, this is this epic cinematic body of work. I think it was 31 famous faces. Like it goes from footballers to basketball players to musicians to creators and like St. West. Like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Like there's there's so much happening. And you're right. It feels like its own universe. It feels like it's inviting all of us to participate. What was the vision? Like, how do you I always want to start not at the fully at the beginning.

11:08But like, what did you envision? What was the message that Nike was like, we're going to convey with this moment? So, you know, our job each year and with each project is to basically figure out how do we remix the values that have built Nike for the last 50, 50 something years, but make sure that they feel very relevant and current to the fan or to the athlete that we're serving today. so if Nike football has always been this idea of creative attacking instinctive but joyful football and I keep coming back to the joy because I think through Rip the Script especially if you're not laughing and smiling throughout it then I didn't do and me and my team we didn't do our job properly because we have so much fun making it and you know I smile every time I see I see a piece of work now still so we had that and then we were like okay but what what does that mean for today's consumer and I think the biggest thing we realized that we just needed to go back to the belief that we've always had, which is like football at its best doesn't come from kind of being overly strategized or overthinking.

12:04It comes from just trusting your gut so deeply. And we kind of landed on this idea that like, we just think football is no best. When the ball lands at their feet, they know what to do. They might have thousands of people screaming in the stands, you know, their taxi driver on the way to the games had an opinion about what they should have done last week. And why did they miss that goal? And why did they not pass the ball? And we were just like but they know best and it was kind of like reiterated to us you know through the through the process of making this work you know the the biggest joy of these jobs is we get to meet athletes day in day out at every level in every sport and we spoke to hundreds of footballers who kept telling us the same thing and they were like we're kind of just a bit sick of people telling us what to do we're sick of everyone having an opinion you know I'm sure it's the same for you guys but you turn the television on there's just pundits everywhere and our analysts everywhere.

12:52You should have done this. You should have done that. Why did he not do this? Why did she not do that? And they were like, we're the people on the pitch. We're the best in the world at this. Like we just want to trust our gut. So that was kind of how we got to kind of the piece at the very start was like, we're into something here. This idea of instinctual football, trust your guts and just kind of footballers know best is kind of how this whole thing started. I love that you spoke to dozens, like over a hundred footballers to kind of come up with that concept, but it spoke to me who would not be, like, I wouldn't know where to stand if you put me on a football field right now.

13:23And I think that's very, very important. And I want to bring Mike in on that point, which is that I think that what this did really well was it showed Nike speaking beyond the endemic sports fan. Mike, why is that so important for brands to do right now in the activewear space? Like, you're not just, you're not competing if you're Nike with your contemporaries in activewear. You're competing with creators and, you know, all the noise. Why do they need to get bigger than the average or the endemic sports fan? The decision to do that was so interesting to me and include that celebrity class alongside the elite footballers, the athletes there, because I think that speaks to the more casual fan.

14:02Because we are talking about the World Cup, which is the biggest sporting event in the world, obviously. And when you've got the biggest sporting event in the world, it's going to be more than just the hardcore fans. We're not just talking about the dudes that are going to be at the pub cheering on the Lions, Helena, or the guys who are playing street soccer and everything like that in the States here. But but like there are people who are going to be sort of more casual and just kind of tapping in and seeing, you know, what this is all about. And like you've got to find a way to connect with those people, too.

14:39And so I think including those celebrities like like Kim Kardashian, like LeBron James, even though he's a basketball player, he's not a soccer guy. That that is an essential part, I think, for for any brand sort of looking to make that connection. But I want to ask you, Helena, like I thought that was a daring choice because football fans are so passionate. And if you if you sort of mix in, you know, some of the outside stuff with with that football culture, like it can be a bit of a sore touch point for a lot of them. And so I'm curious, like with that, like, how did you guys think about like that side of it?

15:20Like, would you would you would you upset those more passionate fans that have been following for years and years? Like, how do you how do you balance that? Yes. Yeah, you're right. We've seen, you know, the world what the world has an opinion on on the cast. I love Kim Kardashian as like the ultimate soccer mom. I totally related to her. But yes. No, but you're right. And I think that's probably the most important thing is the world might see just a list of celebrities and cameos. But the thing that's actually so critical is every single person in this cast as a whole. So the 31 people has an authentic connection to the game.

15:56The world just might not know it. But let's talk about a few of them. Young Miko, right? Everybody just sees this like unbelievable Puerto Rican rapper. She used to play for the Puerto Rican national team under 20. She was a midfielder. she came on set and this girl can play football and it's just like unbelievable to see Kim Kardashian Hassan Saint he's an absolute mad for it PSG fan and you know Kim took him on the tour of of Champions League just a few seasons ago and actually in the work he unveiled the PSG away kit for us for the next season because he's just got such a deep love to the game and it's funny when we're talking to the concept and sharing it with the cast Kim was like oh my goodness that's me on a weekend with the with the little fold out chair and sometimes I have to take a tent because it's so hot and we were like you are the ultimate soccer mom like there is a role there's a role for you but that that authenticity had to be there it's easy for any brand to just pay a list of cameos and I think for us that is not what that's not what this work is about we wanted to make sure everybody embodied kind of two things one authentic connection to football LeBron even minority shareholder in Liverpool you know we know him in this country as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

17:04But there is a whole other audience that see him as having a real deep connection to the club. And the second thing is every cast member also had to embody the idea of trusting your guts and ripping the script. For us, when we land creative ideas and worlds like this, they have to be very, very true. They can't just become taglines. And I think that's kind of the beauty of Nike storytelling in the past. The words mean so much. And I love that you said that, you know, you felt like this spoke to more than just the football fan, because even outside of the casting and the cameos and the kind of the people that are in the work, rip the script and trusting your instincts was also a rallying cry far bigger than football.

17:40You know, we speak about like, what do people need to be told today? And it's like, you know what, trust your gut, like just back yourself a little bit harder and like, see what you can do. And I think we've become, you know, as a society, very, very much told what's right and what's wrong for so long. And we just felt like this message was actually very needed, bigger than football right now. When I was watching, I watched it again yesterday. I just kept thinking like the production part of my brain was like, this must have taken a gazillion weeks and so many retakes. And I can't imagine like the vision required to pull this all together.

18:14Is there something that would surprise our listeners about what it took to pull this off? Like, what was that? Was it long? Was it a long day on set? Did Kim come in with an army of like, tell us the surprising thing of how this all came together? Yeah. Like we we work with the best the best partners in the world. So Wyden and Kennedy are our big advertising and strategic partner. And they've been with Nike from from the very beginning. And I'm so lucky because my two creative directors that I work with every day at Nike have made some of the most iconic Nike football adverts of the last 20 years.

18:44They've been at Nike a long time and they've really shaped it. So they've got stories for days. So as we went into such a bumper production this time, everyone was like, oh, we've done this before. We've done this before. We got to the end of two months of shooting and we were like, we haven't ever done anything like this before, I tell you that. But I think the best thing, and it goes back a bit to the authenticity and the purity of Nike, we went to every single person. So we would be in Madrid, as an example, on a Tuesday night, and we were watching Mbappe and Vinny Jr. play Champions League final football.

19:14And just seeing, you know, you're in one of the best stadiums in the world, watching some of the best clubs, and you're watching the best players just do unbelievable stuff. And then the next morning, we got them in front of camera. but but it's also we all know the world that we live in we've in the last few months we're living through wars that have been created we've seen some of the biggest athletes in the world kind of go through difficult moments in their career we've seen injuries etc so when you sign up for a production like this you you sign up for for the good and the bad in it and we joke as a team we were living a bit like students for a period of time we were shooting till like two three in the morning every night waking up at 10 a.m it's like is is this is this adulthood is this is this real life.

19:53And then every day you're like, you know what, we just get to work with the best people in the world, see the best athletes in the world and kind of just create magic together. But Kim doesn't bring the biggest entourage. She's so low key and she's the best partner, honestly, that we work with. She's kind of phenomenal. No, I believe you. I do believe that. You touched on something else around sort of, you know, what comes with the World Cup space. And Mike, you've covered like how Nike's come at this, but also the bigger controversies around FIFA and some of that history, but also the U.S. logistics of pulling this off.

20:24We've seen the complaints on that, the exorbitant ticket prices. There's been a lot of stuff that brands that want to bet big and yield something from this have to contend with. Mike, how do you think it's shaking out now? I love what an analyst said in one of your stories a couple of weeks ago. He said that the reaction in the U.S. to the World Cup has not been visceral. And many people would say, because that was before it fully started, he's probably not right. Like, it's gone a different direction. Would you agree with that? Like, how is all that shaking out now? Yeah, I think I think I'd agree with that.

20:56Like, I think the reaction has been pretty visceral so far. I think his his overall point, though, was that, like, he doesn't believe that football will sort of overtake like basketball or American football in North America as like the most popular sport. I don't think it will, but I also have seen like, like I can't count the number of like kits that I've seen on the street that kids are wearing or like people walking around and like people walking around regularly in cleats. I've never seen that before. It's so strange to me. In the mall. I'm like, where are you going in cleats right now? Like you're walking into like Houston's to eat dinner and you're like in cleats.

21:40Like what are we doing? and it's like, what do they call it? Boots only summer or something? Yeah, exactly. I don't know, man. I don't know. But the reaction has been like clearly different and clearly stronger than what I remember from any World Cup in my lifetime. And so I'm curious, like Helena, like are you guys seeing anything similar like on your end? Like what's the reaction been? Yeah, exactly. As you guys just shared, like what an unbelievable response. I think there was nervousness coming in, right? There was nervousness of the landscape, of everything that's happening, nervousness around the logistics of three countries.

22:19And then, you know, as an England fan, I've got all my family and mates back home who were like, and the time zone doesn't work for us. And we're up at three in the morning and all of the things. I tell you what, everyone's awake at three in the morning. Well, what did you say when you were hearing that? Did you, at a moment, like, you know, helping to shepherd such a big campaign and this is like not just the ad, obviously rip the script is part, but there's a full 360, community activations, creator collabs, and you're going all in and people are like, the time zone's not right. How did you deal with that?

22:47How did you navigate it? Yeah, I think we have to just be like, do you know what? We believe in the power of this game so much that once it's here, everything else will just fall into place. And I think that's been the beauty of the last few weeks. It really has. And I think what's really important in a moment like this is that there is something for everybody in it. You know, we can't come in, even as Nike, We can't just come in with the big advert and the big storytelling. This game means too much to us. We have to make sure that for every kid who wants to play football in their local street corner or in the park in their neighborhood, they've got the chance to play too.

23:21And that's why as part of the universe that we've built, Toma, and Mike, you spoke about it, but this is a community platform that we've been investing in for over a year now. Over 10 ,000 kids have played football in this platform of Toma. And this weekend here in New York, we're hosting the kind of national final. And I was at the New York final last night in Bryant Park. And you just see what this sport means to people. And yes, it's not necessarily on the scaled week in, week out of the NBA or MLB or NFL. But like, I just wouldn't write it off. You guys, even if you just take the US, if you think about the legacy of the women's game, and then you see the energy that happens today in street football that's happening here.

24:02And now the whole world's eyes are on the men's game through this moment in time. I don't think there's any going back for this country and this sport. And I think it's great for football. But we have to be really mindful of that as you kind of craft marketing, you craft stories around it. Because you don't ever just want to be the shiny object that drops in for the weeks of the tournament and then you leave. We really want to make sure that people have unbelievable access to the game. People have fallen in love with the game in whatever way, whether it be through fashion. Yeah, boots only summer and jersey culture is absolutely everywhere in so many different ways.

24:39But for us, it's to make sure that this moment actually really does ignite kind of this huge love of the game that in, you know, four years time, eight years time, 12 years time, that the U.S. is in a conversation about kind of football, football culture and kind of against moments like the World Cup in the future. We'll be back with more of The Debrief right after this.

25:02The other thing that sort of struck me about the marketing component or just the full 360 of it is that you found a way to have this very globally consistent but hyper-local kind of campaign. How do you pull that off? And is there one piece that holds this all together? Because you're right. We're in New York. I was walking to the studio today and I saw the buses pulling up at Bryant Park, St. Toma. I saw the excited adults and children. And you feel like somewhere along the way, Nike thought of little old me in New York. And I'm not talking about the smallest market in the world, but that's very hard for a big brand to do.

25:40How do you do it? Yeah, I think we had to take a bit of inspiration from just the reality of the game as a whole and the sport. Football is so glorious in the sense of you get to a game day and it's 11 people on a field per team. and it is as simple as there is a ball at your feet and you just got to try and score a goal. But you step away from the stadium or you step away from just that moment of play and football does look very different in every single market. And I think we wanted to embrace that. That is the thing that makes this game so special. I spoke about it, but the idea that it's truly the world's only global sport is something I really believe in.

26:18Yet somehow you experience the game so differently wherever you go around the world. so we wanted to make sure that the purity of what we were standing for of trusting your gut the instinctive creative joyful football was at the heart of it but that every single team that we have around the world could basically make sure that they were reflecting and taking the game locally somewhere new but with the authenticity of kind of what it's built on today so we have you know teams all around the world connected to local players local clubs local local national teams and we just make sure that we really work together on these things is this insight sound enough for us all to build from?

26:53Yes. Does it look a little bit different in every market? Yes. And I think, you know, probably the X2 collection that we dropped is probably the best reflection of that. That was seven of our federations working with seven of our big design partners, and then partnering with seven community projects that we've been investing in for many, many years to kind of grow participation in the game. And again, because I'm English, I'll use the England example. But this really was a partnership with the FA, then with Palace, and then with Football Beyond boarders who are a partner that we've had had forever and i hope that you that you saw some of the wayne rooney storytelling that we did around this but wayne rooney this english football icon was reciting shakespeare to camera it was so i mean i keep using the word epic it's so like you get you feel like you're watching a real like movie or a real moment i saw a comment on youtube was like i never thought i'd watch six minutes yeah i mean that was a separate clip but they're like i would i've never gotten through a six minute i forgot it was an ad yeah i and you know I think we live in an attention deficit culture, don't we?

27:54And how many conversations I'm sure you guys are in every day of like, you've got three seconds to catch somebody's attention and da-da-da-da-da. And we said as a team, do you know what? If the story's good enough, people will want to watch it. And that's true of the Rooney reciting Shakespeare as it is to the rip the script piece, as it is to work that we've done with Pater and the Netherlands and the Dutch team. At every single moment, we've decided that if the thing is entertaining enough, you know, Toma. Toma is the most entertaining style of football. We literally have kids play three-on-three football in tiny, tight spaces in order to create the most entertaining football, because that's what Nike football is.

28:31We're not here for the kind of low box, low blocks, high defense, just like park the bus kind of style of play. It's since our founding. That's not what Ronaldo did 30-something years ago in Brazil. It's not what, you know, Mbappe and Vinnie Jr. do today. So we want to make sure at every single point that the work, the experiences, the stories, and even the product allows for the most entertaining style of football possible. And I think we've seen huge, huge upside. Like Rip the Script, we're at over 1.5 billion views. This is our most viewed storytelling in Nike's history. And the duration of which people are watching for, we're seeing people stay for the whole thing.

29:12And I just think it just shows you that it's so easy in today's world to get lost in all of the data and all of the analytics. But if your story is good enough, people are captivated. Mike and I have probably like 15K of those views between us. There's a lot of, if you took marketing one-on-one, like every marketer will say that their goal is to be like, we're going to have this global campaign, but it's going to feel like it's touching the individual. Everyone says they're trying to do that. Mike, characterize how tough that is to do in the sports space right now, to have a big global moment, but have it feel like it's small enough that you can wrap your arms around it in your local city?

29:51It's incredibly hard. I mean, Helena, you know how tough that is. Because you're serving so many audiences at one time, and you have to also make everybody feel special. And it's like, that's a delicate dance that I do not, like, I'm glad that's not my job. I can't imagine how some of those how some of those conversations must must go. But, you know, the truth is, and I think that's when you also know that you've got something great is, you know, we spend a lot of time writing advertising scripts, right, or building creative ideas. And then I have such talented people in my team and their job is to go around and share it with an athlete.

30:35And what do you think to this? And you can easily find yourself in conversations where someone's like, well, I want to be the opening athlete. or I want more screen time or why am I not associated with this and that person is. And we just didn't have that with this body of work. And I think it showed the strength of the idea of that almost it doesn't matter who you talk to. Every footballer felt like that this message of like football is no best. Trust your gut. Play with instinct. Shut out the controlling noise that's trying to make you play a very particular style of play. They're all over it.

31:07And I think it just it was it was so refreshing to kind of be like, we got something here that's so special and it actually allowed us then to be like okay play into harland's personality and you know he is he is known for the fewest touches in the game and just yet the highest conversion and all of a sudden okay well everyone just wants to be like harland who wants to be like harland the most channing tatum he is used to play football he's been in so many football movies um etc etc and you're like okay there's a whole idea there that even though it's still based on this idea of like, trust your gut, kind of you know best what to do in this moment, rip the script, it felt very personal to Erling Haaland.

31:45And that's been the same for every single cast member. So I think when your idea is good enough and you've got one central belief that everybody truly embodies and is kind of authentic to, actually the worlds kind of then drop out around it and they get to have loads of fun and kind of be really local. And some of those things, we've been running a luck-alike competition for other Erling Haaland. So it's not just Channing Tatum. And that lookalike competition started in Norway. And we had like hundreds of people on the streets auditioning to say that they looked like Erling Haaland. But this is before we even launched Rip the Script because we were creating this groundswell through all of our cities.

32:21And there's something very special actually happening today as Norway are playing France actually in Boston. And we're taking a group of those lookalike winners to the game to watch Erling Haaland. And they're going to be surprised because Channing Tatum's going to be there as well. And they're going to get to watch the game with him, all dressed as Erling Haaland. So how do you come up with this stuff? That's a great point. I kind of want to pivot a little bit to sort of the future and like Nike's ambitions. And it made me think Nike is, it's like there's the blessing and the curse of being Nike is everyone's watching, right?

32:54So you get it right. And you get the biggest global round of applause. If something misses, you have just that much attention. How do you decide? How do you make choices about activations, about talent? Like you mentioned sort of almost the serendipity of how it came together with there was no ego in the room. I bet there was a little ego, but we won't talk about it. But like people were OK to yield to the process. Like how do you what's the criteria to make something that come together and to choose the right people and to choose the right activations? Yeah, look, we I get to work on a brand that was built on founders that were just so visionary.

33:29and you know I think people like Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight that they're they've got quotes and legacies that have shaped this this this brand for so many years and probably some of the the most kind of founding principles though are things like we always listen to the voice of the athlete so for us it's a non-negotiable if an athlete doesn't feel like something's authentic to them they don't necessarily agree with it we can never be the brand that just slaps an image with a line and says, that's our job done. It's against everything that Nike stands for. I think also today, though, we also have to embrace feeling a little bit uncomfortable.

34:03You know, there is, especially in the marketing world, you know, Nike has built a playbook, right? For sport moments, take World Cups. And I say this really with no ego from myself because I stand on the shoulders of people who created this world before me, but we have defined what it means to show up at things like World Cups of the past. Gorgeous, cinematic, sequential storytelling. We've done it better than anybody in our history, but we knew that that wouldn't be enough today. And it also won't be enough only to have that in the future. So we have to embrace feeling a little bit uncomfortable.

34:35Are we authentic to the athlete? Does a body of work or an idea showcase the values that we've had forever as this kind of company has been founded? And are we a bit uncomfortable? And, you know, as we as we were building Rip the Script and actually the entire universe, at times we were really uncomfortable. That's in product creation as well. We launched a new Mercurial for this moment, but we didn't launch one, we launched two. We didn't need to launch two boots, but we felt like the world needed to understand there was two different ways in at speed. It wasn't just linear anymore. You could be quick cutting more like a Vinny Jr.

35:09type of player. But that made us uncomfortable too. Does the world have capacity for two Mercurials today? And it's funny, I was just talking to my team on the way in. And in this moment in the tournament, Mercurial alone has scored more goals than any other brand's collection of boots in this moment in the tournament. That shows you there's appetite for two boots of speed. It's like it's so every moment, I think, as we as we build to the future, especially in the world of marketing, I want to make sure that my team and Nike as a whole is always doing the unexpected, willing to take the risk. And, you know, not to sound too cliche, but almost like listening to the idea of ripping the script of like really deciding, like, what is the new thing in this moment in time?

35:49You have to be willing to be okay with it maybe not always working out. That's hard with a platform like Nike, you're right. And even in moments where you put some of your favorite work out there, you're always going to get people in the comments. You're always going to get hate. That's unfortunately the industry we're in, the world that we live in today. But as long as our athletes think it was great, as long as kids on the street want to be associated to it in some way, share it, mix it, wear a badge of it. Like if you want to talk about it, then I think we're doing all right. So, Mike, when we start our soccer career, the Mercurial, that's the that's the boot that we're going to go purchase for our next FIFA.

36:26Exactly. On the pitch. You and I. We're the fastest players on the pitch. Y 'all don't want me on the pitch. I'm just out there. I'm just out there trying to hit people. I'm not zero skill. I don't believe you. I don't believe you. You never know. I also want to put this all like in the context of where Nike is at, like in the midst of a turnaround, which in that on that journey, I think most people would agree this is this counts as a win. Right. How would you characterize where this fits into the grand scheme of things? This big World Cup moment feels like a high. It feels like it feels like you could put that on the on the win side of the box.

37:04How would you how would you characterize it? Yeah, exactly that. Look, we we've been very open, you know, under a new CEO of with Elliot, a guy who actually similar to me started as an intern at Nike and kind of has just spent his his career experiencing this brand and leading it in so many different ways. He's been very honest about the comeback and the turnaround and what what needed to be true. And I think the thing he said from the from day one, since he got back into into the organization, he said, we're going to be leading with sport. sport and athletes will show us the way and i think world cup has been you know the purest expression of that we've had many other wins as we've got here um you know as to keep referencing the knicks but what a win for the city of new york for the knicks organization and also for nike we're so proud to stand there with the knicks and the work that we did as part of a part of that moment um but but this is a win but it's a win on a journey and a comeback that's still got way to go and i think um that's the thing that we're that we're always honest about like we have to now figure out like what worked in this moment um how do we keep doing it because you know you want to turn around a company the size of nike a ship like ours it's going to take some time and none of us are sat around with patience uh we love this brand we love this industry more than anyone we take inspiration from our athletes that it's just never enough there's always one percent more like what can you do differently um but i think world cup for us has been a huge huge huge proof point of focusing back on sport doing right by your athletes being bold taking risks and kind of the iconically Nike way of the past.

38:35And that is the playbook to the success of the comeback that we're on. So I'll probably say this for maybe a dozen times. Is it dozens? I don't know. Go for it. I'll say this for maybe the sixth or seventh time. I'll just change the number. On the debrief, which is that when we say Nike is turning around or needs to be turned around, I always like to put it in the right context. This is a$50 billion revenue brand that is lapping its second place competitor by a couple cool billions. So it's not really, yes, there's like slowing growth and the need to kind of, you know, to maybe supercharge a little bit, but this is, it's not a fledgling company trying to swim its way back to the shore.

39:14I do think though, what we're seeing now and broadly in sport is like, or active wear is a battle for cultural relevance. Like, I think that's what brands are really after. Mike, what do you make of that? Like this is, I think that in the grand scheme of things is probably the biggest metric that we're watching versus the traditional P &L, EBITDA, sales, every other thing on that balance sheet. I think it's cultural relevance. Yeah, I would agree with that. And to that point, I think that this is really the thing that I've been curious about for Nike with the World Cup is like, what is the, I'm trying to think of the right way to word this.

39:55Like, what's the, I guess, preferred outcome? Like, would it be like sort of, you know, seeing like a boom in sales and kit sales, Mercurial Boots, the X2 collection selling through and everything like that? Or is it like that that like cultural component, like that that that sort of like connecting to the to the hearts and minds of the of the public through like through the sport of football? Because I think like obviously like Nike has a long history in the sport dating back decades. But I also think that like most people would connect the brand, the company to like basketball before they would football.

40:39And like would the company like prefer a change in that thinking to like a big boom in sales? Like what do you think about that? Yeah, I think the thing that you just both hit on is the landscape of the industry is so different today. We don't just have the same five competitors that we had, you know, a decade ago. And I think even, you know, one of your first questions around the difference of World Cup in 2018 to 2022, I think the competitor landscape is one of the biggest differences. It is everyone from high fashion, high tech to more kind of sports industry, kind of familiar faces that we've known today.

41:18and it's because of the cultural relevancy of sport. Everybody wants a piece of it. You want to be associated to the winners, to the energy, to the fandom, to the moment. I think for us, of course, making sure that we are the leading football brand in the world is absolutely a priority. But that isn't the only metric of success in this moment. You guys spoke about it, but we're talking about billions of people tuning into this moment, billions. That isn't one in just Mercurial sales. They are critical to us and we're seeing the performance of Mercurial on the pitch and also in our stores absolutely fly off the charts.

41:51So they give us all the right signals. But this is a far bigger opportunity for us. It is cultural connectivity to this brand, from the youngest fan in the street that maybe one day wants to be the next Cristiano Ronaldo, to the person that maybe has been around for a really long time, but has never watched football before and all of a sudden feels the need to express an identity with either Nike or the game of football or soccer to some degree. So for us, yes, winning in football, but that's kind of a non-negotiable. That is what our football team do every single day. Moments like this are about far deeper relationships and kind of a love letter between Nike, the game of football, the world of sport with kind of, you know, fans and athletes all around the world.

42:35And sometimes those things aren't so easy to just say you've won in a moment. You know, they they kind of manifest over years where people look back and I hope one day there's a young kid that's like you know do you remember Nike's ripped the script ad because the amount of people I meet that say oh when Nike made the airport ads I just fell in love with Brazilian football and Nike and all of those things and so there's some very tangible metrics we want to make sure that people are talking about us that they are wearing our product that they're at Toma and they see the power of football in like local communities and but but these moments are about so much more than that and it really is Nike being part of a cultural conversation but most importantly like an everlasting conversation in people's lives oh I love that I was going to ask a question that I think still fits which my last question really was you know if you're you know when this tournament is over in the next how many days people are not they're not counting down the days they're very worried but it will have to come I fear it will come to an end at some point I'll ask both you I'll start with Mike like what would be the one thing you'd look at first to determine if this was a success?

43:38And this to you, Mike, is like broader sport, active wear space. The first variable you'll look at and say, hmm, this went well or it didn't go well. That's a tough question, Sheena. I think the thing that I'm paying the most attention to is just really, it's really the conversation. Like I want to know like what people, like what is the moment that people are talking about, right? Like, is it, was it something that happened on the pitch at the World Cup? Was it something that happened around the game? Like, what do, what does the broader public sort of leave this tournament with that they will remember?

44:20Obviously, they'll remember whoever wins it or whatever, but like, beyond that, is there a specific moment or like thing that people are sort of leaving the tournament remembering. And that to me is kind of the most important aspect here. Like Helena was saying, that cultural aspect of who is sort of the, I don't want to say the leader in the space, but kind of the leader in the space, if that makes sense. Like, who has left this tournament as the biggest, you know, talking point in people's minds? And I think that's the most important thing. I don't know if there's, like, an exact, like, metric or way to measure that.

45:08I was trying to keep my sports analogies going. Like, there must be, like, a KPI. This is sports. Elena, I appreciate that you said that this is the long game. This is something that maybe the biggest metric will be in 10 years that people are pointing to this like they did the airport ad or the first time that Michael Jordan stepped on the court, like with Nike footwear on. But is there something that like when the final team, you know, takes the pitch in there, getting their big trophy that you're going to look at first and say, I think this counts as a big, big win for us? Yeah, I think, yes, there are.

45:41It's hard to say just one particular thing because of just the vastness of the moment, right? You know, what's really important for us is how our athletes perform. You know, we are an athlete led organization, first and foremost. And today, more goals have been still not just in Mercurial, but in Nike as a whole than anybody else. That number is, the Nike goal number is massive compared to other brands. So we want to make sure our athletes have had an unbelievable tournament. So that kind of becomes one of our KPIs. we want to make sure that Rip the Script is in cultural conversations. We want to make sure that that 1.5 billion, we're just at the start of this campaign.

46:17You know, we spoke about this being a 12-week universe of storytelling, of all these product drops, et cetera, to come. And Mike, knowing that you're such a big football fan, obviously yesterday we just launched the gold scorpion boot for Cristiano, becoming the only player ever to score in six World Cups. So we've got so much more stuff that keeps coming. So we want to make sure that we've been part of a conversation with our product, but also through Rip the Script. And then it's also really important for us that people in the streets where this tournament has been hosted also felt like Nike was theirs.

46:48And last night I said I was at Toma in Bryant Park and there was this unbelievable moment where it was the women's final. And one of the girls, so Emma Hayes, who's obviously the US Women's National Team coach, she was sat front row. She's a big believer in Toma and the style of play it creates and thinks it's gonna be really revolutionary for the US like feeder system into the national team. So she came down last night. And at some point, the girls competing in the final, and this is the biggest stage that they've played football on. One girl, she stopped the game, ran over to Emma Hayes, got her phone out and took a selfie mid final.

47:23And all that tells me is like, you know what, that girl last night, that was her life made through Nike, through football. And she's a girl that lives in Brooklyn and football is just a big part of her life. So there's so many different KPIs coming into it. Of course, conversations, sales, athlete performance, you name it. But last night, I just watched this moment happen. You know, I looked at Emma after and she could tell that this girl, she believes she's got a future in football all of a sudden. Really, thanks to the investment that we've made in Toma. Yeah, you can't put that on a scoreboard.

47:56Yeah, you can't. That's a huge win. Helena, thank you so much for joining us on The Debrief. Mike, thanks for being here again. And this was great. Yes, thank you so much for having me. Of course. I have one last question for Helen. Of course. Is it coming home, yes or no? Look, deep, deep, deep in my heart, I just have to say yes. I have to say yes. The Ghana game gave me a moment to pause. But tomorrow night, Panama, we're back out there. All right, go sports. Come on, England.

48:32you've been listening to The Debrief produced and edited by Olivia Davies and Angel Nemov I'm Sheena Butler-Young thanks for listening and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcast we'll see you next week