How do you kick off a collaboration between two icons? You drop the most talked about music video of the year — and you film it at Nike World Headquarters.
How do you kick off a collaboration between two icons? You drop the most talked about music video of the year — and you film it at Nike World Headquarters.
Drake was about to enter a partnership with Nike, launching his own sub-brand of clothing and shoes, “NOCTA”. There was just one problem: the line wouldn’t drop until December, but Drake had an album release in August and wanted to tease the collaboration. We knew we needed something big to capture the world’s imagination about this partnership.
We were briefed in July, and we knew we needed to act quickly to hit our August deadline. When we talked to Drake (on Zoom, of course), he was already in Barbados to shoot a music video. But we felt like we could persuade him to abandon his shoot and opt for our idea. In our pitch, we positioned him as the Athlete of the People, the everyman who gets to live out their dreams. Drake is a huge sports fan, and Nike’s campus is the ultimate playground.
We pitched him the idea to shoot the video for his new single “Laugh Now, Cry Later” at Nike WHQ, bringing some famous friends (who happen to be Nike athletes) along for the ride. Drake recognized that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, with campus closed to employees due to Covid-19. The place would be his. He took the next plane to Beaverton.
Once Drake was in, we had to get sign off from the bigwigs in Beaverton. Fortunately, they also recognized how rare this opportunity was. It didn’t hurt that Drake tapped video legend Dave Meyers to direct. NOCTA was chosen as the collaboration name because of Drake’s nocturnal work habits. The shoot took place over two nights, on a closed set at Nike WHQ.
Following the shoot, there was a tight window to edit the video for the public. Drake gave a small warning the morning before the drop, which Nike commented with on and re-grammed. Something big was about to happen.
The “Laugh Now, Cry Later” music video dropped at midnight on 8/13/20 and was an instant smash: 24 million views and 72 million social media impressions in just 24 hours. After one week, more than 50 million views. The video helped propel the single to a #2 debut on the Billboard 100 singles chart.
Many of the ideas we pitched to Drake ended up being in the final video, including:
* Playing basketball with Kevin Durant
* Playing football with Odell Beckham Jr.
* Hitting baseballs off the top of a building
* Running on the Nike training treadmill
* Night vision golf cart rides
And of course, jet skiing in the Nike lake (see our concept art on the left vs. the final shot in the video)
The video was the #1 trending topic on both Twitter and YouTube following its release.
Fan sentiment was incredibly high, and helped us land our “Athlete of the People” positioning of Drake in the minds of fans around the world.
Drake’s famous friends showed out to help promote the video too.
As with everything Drake, the memes quickly followed.
A few eagle-eyed folks in the media caught the final frame, which featured a first look at Drake’s Nocta logo.
And the media was all over it — music, sneaker and sports entities all posted about the video.
Drake told us afterward the video was a “career highlight.” That speaks volumes to the work of our team in pulling this all off during a pandemic.
ROLES
Senior Copywriter - Michael Taylor
Art Direction - Jake Gevalt and Jake Gascoyne
Brand Narrative Manager - Phil Campbell
Brand Narrative Director - Lydia Pang
Senior Art Director - Everett Vangsens
Nike Creative Director - Kamauri Yeh
Video Director - Dave Meyers
Photographer - Jerry Buttles