Here’s a piece D&AD wrote about Nothing Beats a Londoner but had to take down due to a certain court case that I’m not supposed to talk about.

Case Study: Nothing Beats A Londoner

Global sports brand Nike chose Wieden+Kennedy [W+K] London to create an ad which would get the city of London talking. By Luc Benyon.

The Brief

 “We were tasked with storytelling” says Creative Director Mark Shanley, “The fact that that became a three minute film wasn’t the intention.” In fact, the creative team at W+K, headed by Shanley and his partner Paddy Treacy, played with the idea of documentaries, and shorter films, but the three minute film won out. But despite the headline-grabbing film being launched on television, this would be an idea that lived and breathed on social media. 

The Insight

Creative team Tom Bender and Tom Corcoran, together with Planning Director Paula Bloodworth, set to work researching the conversations and reference points that young Londoners used in their daily lives. They spent time with London’s teenagers finding out their problems through the lens of sport. A huge volume of research was compiled, covering everything from sporting heroes, to musical icons, to language.  

By the time it came to writing the script, Bender and Corcoran had a wealth of resource to draw from. Each micro-story featured was based on a real anecdote from the research. So playing ice-hockey alone, cycling home on a one-wheeled bike, or having to run the gauntlet through town were all real life experiences of teenage Londoners.

The idea was to invert the usual sports brand trope of placing sporting greats on pedestals, and instead highlight real Londoners. These every-day athletes would engage in a game of ‘one-downsmanship’ to demonstrate the trials and tribulations they endured to practice their sport of choice.

“So whenever you do see an athlete in the film they’re being impressed by a kid, not the other way around,” explains Shanley, “we showed the side of London that brands don’t usually show. There was no Big Ben or London Eye. That’s why kids saw themselves in it. We showed them their London.” 

The idea would be that kids growing up in London were resilient, and maintained self-belief despite the hardships that surround them. As Shanley puts it: “It’s that confidence that gets eroded by the real world. Paula [Bloodworth] recognised the mindset of an elite athlete in these London kids; they have that same self-belief.”

And so the platform of ‘Nothing Beats a Londoner’ was born.

The Execution

The stars were cast for their sporting abilities, conducted with talent agency Sports on Screen, bringing skilful youngsters casting sessions.

The script had to reflect the speech of London teenagers; the creative team were reticent to write a script with slang forced in. Shanley describes how they transitioned from a script to the final dialogue: “It’s really hard to have that voice as a brand, and not sound like a ‘cool’ dad. Tom and Tom wrote a brilliant script… then once the casting was set, they had a workshop with every kid, and asked them to convey the same idea using their own language.”

Shanley emphasises that showing diversity wasn’t a consideration, but representation was: “We cast the best athletes, and diversity was the natural outcome. That’s what happens when you go and find the best 30 teenage athletes in London, that’s what it looks like.” 

This went a long way towards the success of the film with its target market, “That’s a big part of why it resonated with kids, they saw themselves in it. They saw that this is what London looks like. Seeing someone who looks like you on screen the way we would normally treat Ronaldo or Neymar, it’s inspiring. The goal was to raise kids up so high they never come down.”

The directors chosen for the job were French duo Megaforce, represented by RiffRaff. “They’re just such energetic, creative, smart guys,” Shanley explains. No strangers to D&AD Pencils, Megaforce chose to shoot on 16mm film, and brought with them the ideas for the scene transitions which give the film its pace and continuity. 

To work out initial timings, Bender and Corcoran shot a rough version of the script themselves, Megaforce then made an animatic, which Final Cut’s Joe Guest edited. Guest was also on set throughout the shoot to enable him to add it to a live edit, assess the timing and feedback to the directors.

In addition to Megaforce’s trademark special effects, the overall aesthetic was important to get right, and so Simone Grattarola at Time Based Arts was brought on board. A veteran of The BBC’s Peaky Blinders, Grattarola made a consistent look that perfectly represented London. “It’s a very post-heavy spot,” claims Shanley, “but Time Based Arts made it look like there wasn’t much post on it.” 

The film’s musical references were mainly secured through Nike’s existing relationships, with stars of the London music scene Dave x AJ Tracey, Skepta and Dizzee Rascal all featuring. Sam Ashwell at audio post production house 750mph oversaw the sound design, working closely with Editor Joe Guest on the tapestry of sounds which make up the film.

The Launch

‘Nothing Beats a Londoner’ debuted on Instagram Stories, each character in the film posting their section as a response to the previous, from their own personal account, creating a chain. “Because each kid was one-downing the next, Instagram felt like a natural place, as each one could reply to the other,” says Shanley. This meant that the people who encountered the film first were the young people of London.

The film itself launched during the UK’s Spring ‘half-term’ school break, airing before the blockbuster film Black Panther.

There was also a tie-in a series of Nike events, called ‘Beat This’, which encouraged youngsters to attend sporting events around the capital. These free events could see people learning sports with athletes, while an online portal enabled people to book tennis courts and football pitches for free. This gave the ‘Londoner’ platform much bigger than just a film. 

Another element Instagram added to the campaign was the use of the new ‘Swipe Up’ feature. Here, athletes and stars of the film asked viewers to swipe to engage with the ‘Beat This’ events. 

Director Finn Keenan filmed extra content during the main shoot, producing GIFs, Swipe Up films and stills (which were used at Nike Town in Oxford Circus). The GIFs performed conversational functions, and enable Nike to populate private conversations on platforms like WhatsApp.  

The Response

The film and social content spread virally, and not just among the target audience. It was widely hailed as a classic; a ‘Parklife’ of its day. At the D&AD Awards it picked up a huge seven Yellow Pencils, rewarding the individual crafts such as Copywriting, Directing, and Editing. 

Perhaps just as telling was another award, a Wood Pencil for ‘Use of Talent’. By working with the city’s communities, W+K had tapped into something that felt fresh and diverse: “There is no one way a Londoner looks, there is no one way a Londoner speaks, and there is no one sound of London” says Shanley. 

And what of the accusation that the film was too London-centric? Shanley is unapologetic: “It was an ad for London, so it was about London. That was the brief, and that was what we made.” You can’t argue with that.