Who is Nike addressing with its latest remarkable video? It is called “You Can’t Stop Us” and has just been released. He doesn’t talk about products, he doesn’t talk about news.<\/p>\n
As always, when Nike uses this type of communication it speaks to everyone, talking about itself or rather its vision of sport and life. Which is then a view shared by many, regardless of preferences for one brand or another.<\/p>\n
It is quite obvious that it speaks to COVID-19 and the difficulties that the whole world, simultaneously, faced. He does so by using the metaphor of sports as a way to overcome adversity united for the greater good, for once not talking about victory or personal achievement. Or rather: if there is a victory to look for in this narrative, it is the one against the virus, against fear, against divisions.<\/p>\n
In addition to the message, however, it is even more remarkable how technically this video is made: in fact, it employs the split-screen technique, that is, the screen split into two halves. Generally used to show different actions happening in different places-perhaps at the same time or even delayed-is used here in a very clever and innnovative way: instead of dividing by showing differences, it shows what unites through common gestures that belong to different sports. If one kicks a ball in one half, a boy who dives into a pool in the other receives it. If one performs a long jump to the left, to the right is LeBron going to the basket.<\/p>\n
It is a simple concept (differences unite, united we achieve goals greater than ourselves) masterfully rendered. There is only one sequence that is identical left and right: it is that of two workers sanitizing the stands of a stadium: in that we are really all the same, or at least those who love the sport played or just watched and loved.<\/p>\n
Finally, some technical trivia: 4000 different sports actions were viewed to make it and 72 were chosen; 24 different sports play in the video and 53 athletes are seen (thanks to Michele De Paola for expertise \ud83d\ude09). There are also two all-Italian sequences: one with Bebe Vio and that of Vittoria Olivieri and Carola Pessina<\/a>, the two girls who played tennis between two rooftops in Finale Ligure during the lockdown (by the way: their invention became a Barilla commercial<\/a> starring Roger Federer who recently recorded it with them on those very rooftops).<\/p>\n Shivers.<\/p>\n