Looking to deepen its ties to USA Basketball’s “Redeem Team,” Nike this week will release its first Olympics ad to focus exclusively on the basketball team.
The 30-second spot, titled “United We Rise,” mashes together images of Marvin Gaye singing the national anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game with images of the basketball team running through drills and practice in Las Vegas. It closes with the words “Just Do It” and the image of Nike’s swoosh.
The commercial will appear on ESPN2 on Tuesday after the final episode of the show “Road to Redemption,” a show about USA Basketball presented by Nike. Created by Wieden & Kennedy, the commercial will appear on ESPN, NBC, Fox and other cable networks beginning Friday, and also will be featured online on Nike’s Web site and NBCOlympics.com.
“United We Rise” features the U.S. team
with an assist from Marvin Gaye.
The spot, which plays to the nationalism the Olympics can inspire, marks a shift for Nike. Rather than showcase individual players like many of its ads do, Nike focuses on the entire team, using raw practice footage to highlight how the team is preparing for the Olympics collectively.
The spot shows only one dunk — on a pass from Jason Kidd off the backboard to Carlos Boozer — and mostly features images of players passing — Kobe Bryant to Kidd and Kidd to Chris Paul. It culminates with Team USA players holding their hands aloft in a huddle.
All of it is a nod to the team-first message that coach Mike Krzyzewski and managing director Jerry Colangelo have been espousing since taking over the team after the 2004 Olympics.
Nike has endorsement deals with all but one of the 12 athletes on Team USA, Dwight Howard, who is signed with Adidas. While there are no close-ups of Howard in the commercial, a Nike spokesperson said he was not deliberately excluded. The spokesperson added, “For us, it’s about a team.”