Nike Running · Heritage
Blue Ribbon
Sports
Creative Director + Art Director · Ona Creative · Spring '24
The third chapter: a campaign built on Nike's own origin story. Before it was Nike, it was Blue Ribbon Sports — and in celebration of that heritage and grassroots start, I planned the ultimate running road trip for a team of EKINs (Nike's own employee-athlete ambassadors — "Nike" spelled backward), shot in a nostalgic van-life capture style inspired directly by the original Blue Ribbon Sports Winnebago. Shot back-to-back with Bloom and Progression — all 3 Spring '24 campaigns built and shot in 1.5 days across Leimert Park, Malibu, and Riverside, CA.
I led concept development and the pitch, then went on-set as director — not just overseeing, but directing the shoot day to day. Nostalgic film tones, real road-trip texture, Nike's own EKINs living the brand's grassroots origins instead of just referencing them.
A road trip is a logistics problem pretending to be a vibe. The route had to deliver three distinct looks, the light had to land in the right place at the right hour, and the whole thing had to be captured between two other campaigns shooting the same week.
Casting Nike’s own EKINs did the heavy lifting. They already live the brand, so the footage never had to perform enthusiasm — it just had to keep up with them.
Cut for Instagram at 4:5 and carried across social, .com, email and in-app. The colour story came straight off the original Blue Ribbon Sports Winnebago, so the grade was doing brand work as much as it was doing mood.
