Write the Future

Read the campaign story

Nike’s 2010 Write the Future campaign treated a moment in football as the beginning of a much larger story. Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam’s account describes decisive passes, goals and tackles creating consequences beyond a single match. The film imagined the futures that could follow those moments, turning athletic performance into a question of reputation and possibility. The History of Advertising Trust records a three-minute commercial directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu.

The agency says it introduced the campaign through social media before a worldwide television airing during the 2010 Champions League final. Facebook content, print, outdoor and retail extended the idea. In Johannesburg, fans could contribute predicted headlines that were projected onto a skyscraper in multiple languages. The participation therefore echoed the film’s central premise: supporters, as well as players, could imagine what the next sporting moment might set in motion.

Editorial interpretation: the creative mechanism is to expand a tiny decision into a large imagined consequence. This gives familiar match action additional stakes without requiring every scene to explain a product feature. It also creates a useful organising principle for different media. The main film dramatises the possibility, while fan headlines let the audience author a small version of it. The invitation is more coherent because it grows from the story rather than arriving as an unrelated competition.

For marketers, this is a way to connect a hero execution to participation: identify the imaginative task the story asks viewers to perform, then make that task available to them. The constraint is production and cultural specificity. A global football film carries expectations around players, tournaments and national identity. Predictions and imagined outcomes must remain recognisable as creative speculation, and campaign visibility should not be treated as a direct measure of footwear sales.

Build around a familiar decision

Build the central story around a decision or moment that the audience already understands.

Derive participation from the story

Derive the participation mechanic from the film’s narrative action rather than adding a generic hashtag contest.

Preserve the structure across markets

Plan versions for different markets while preserving the same cause-and-consequence structure.

A small test for another brief

A community sports organiser works with consenting adult participants to show how one practice decision affects an ordinary next step, without promising fame or a particular result.

Compare registration completion and accurate expectations with a conventional event announcement.

Stop if the story relies on unlicensed footage, speculative personal claims or pressure to equate sporting success with personal worth.

• Build the central story around a decision or moment that the audience already understands.
• Derive the participation mechanic from the film’s narrative action rather than adding a generic hashtag contest.
• Agree on one outcome, a reasonable comparison and the stop condition before release.