Hasta La Creative!

With the U.S. Women’s National Team playing their first game in the Women’s World Cup today, Thousands Creative kicked off a new campaign for Nike Soccer, entitled “No Maybes.”

The 60-second spot “American Woman” launches the campaign with a look at the team training in preparation for the tournament. Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, Carli Lloyd, Christen Press and Megan Rapinoe all appear decked out in Nike Hypervenom IIs in the ad, which is set to a certain song by The Guess Who. It illustrates the “No Maybes” mentality by showing the the team going through grueling hours of training before they ever step on the pitch.

“You have to have a team mentality with the competitiveness of the individual,” explained U.S. Women’s National Team captain, Abby Wambach, who also recently appeared in an ad for Cree. “You want to make sure that everyone around you has the same mentality and then enmesh those individualities. We are masters of controlling ourselves and bringing out the best in each other.”

W+K Portland tapped some of the world’s greatest athletes for their new holiday spot touting the advantages of Nike Hyperwarm Performance Baselayer, directed by Rupert Sanders. ”Winning in a Winter Wonderland” features the talents of Giants defensive end Justin Tuck, skier Julia Mancuso, snowboarder Scotty Lago, soccer stars Alex Morgan and Sydney Leroux, and former Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano, who now appears to be headed to Seattle. Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer also makes a brief cameo appearance.

While undeniably cheesy (hey, it’s the holidays) the spot does an admirable job at promoting the Nike Hyperwarm Performance Baselayer. People are prone to listen to endorsements from star athletes, and W+K got a wide, varied group together for the spot. They emphasize that the Nike Hyperwarm Performance Baselayer makes playing in cold, harsh conditions seem almost enjoyable by keeping you warm without restricting movement, perfectly matching the song selection. “Winning in a Winter Wonderland,” of course, changes the words of the holiday classic, which gets a bit cringe-worthy in spots but mostly comes across as cheesy holiday fun. The words are sung by the star athletes in the spot, mostly while in action, and they seem to have a lot of fun with it — which makes it hard to hate.

The campaign features both a one minute and thirty second version of the spot, as well as a digital takeover and social media elements.”Winning in a Winter Wonderland” premiered during college football’s Big Ten NCAA Championship game and will run throughout the holiday season. Credits after the jump.  continued…

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