Nike Preempts Magic With Latest Runners Helping Runners Campaign
This weekend saw the return of the Berlin Marathon. An event that now boasts both the men’s and women’s world record thanks to Tigst Assefa smashing the latter by a whopping 2 minutes. With that, it feels odd to focus on the men’s event but Nike’s latest campaign dropped in the build-up and as ever, the GOAT of marathoning, Eliud Kipchoge took centre stage.
Heading into the race, Kipchoge had won the Berlin Marathon a record equalling 4 times, only to be matched by Ethiopian great, Haile Gebrselassie. With last year’s performance producing a world record 2:01:09, was Nike’s campaign hinting at history repeating itself?
In the campaign, bright colours and trippy hallucinations encourage runners to have a beautiful run and see magic not miles. The campaign film sees an everyday runner pull up, seemingly struggling. A surreal orb hovers in front of her and opens presenting some futuristic glasses. Putting them on, the runner is transformed to an alternative reality - a universe where Eliud Kipchoge is (even more) God-like.
Finding herself on a mars-like terrain, Eliud looms over the mountains encouraging her to have a ‘beautiful run’. A magical path lights up whilst Kipchoge’s meditative tones motivate the runner to keep going, before she breaks free of the hallucinative world, returning to where she stopped.
Fuelled with motivation she continues.
So returning to the streets of Berlin, was Eliud Kipchoge about to break through his biggest and perhaps last barrier. The sub-2 hour marathon in competition? Or equally as impressive, a third world record?
🚨 SPOILER 🚨 Running on a warmer than normal Sunday, it seemed the heat got the better of him. And when I say “got the better of him”, he clocked a 2:02.42 to take a historic 5th title at the marathon major and thus claimed another magic moment under the Brandenburg Gate, a perfect reward for Nike with their very smart campaign. The brand capped off the weekend with a pop-up in the west side of the city which gave runners the chance to experience community events, raffles, panel talks, elite athletes, shake out runs, and much more.
The campaign can be found on Nike Running’s Instagram account.
