The 2021 basketball campaign for Reebok, entitled “Courting Greatness,” is an exploration of basketball at a community level. What are the challenges, both tactile and emotional, that prospective players face? How can the brand empower them to eclipse said challenges? And, how can the personal stories of our partner athletes (Allen Iverson, Shaquille O’Neal) provide inspirational blueprints through which to do so? We began with helping our consumers construct their own playing spaces through an AR tool on Courting Greatness dot com (see case study to left). This was about helping athletes find their starting point - today, the campaign concludes with a conversation around of the destination: the Naismith Hall of Fame.
The Question “Class of ’16” is a celebration of the year in which both AI and Shaq were inducted into the Hall of Fame - the culmination of their basketball journey from street corner to athletic immortality via enshrinement in the sport’s highest honor. To launch said sneaker, we created a film that features real members of After-School All-Stars (ASAS), one of the largest free school-based after-school community basketball programs in the country. Voiced by Taylor Sele , the film explores the role that *questions* and introspection play in achieving success whether driving to the hoop or the hall. It is our belief that greatness ultimately lies in the answers to these questions we ask ourselves, and to truly court greatness is to answer (which just so happens to be AI’s nickname) them.
Credits
Written and Directed by: Nicholas Rotondi
Talent: After School All Stars
Voiceover: Taylor Sele
DoP: Anthony Carella
Agency: M&C Saatchi Sport + Entertainment North America
Production: Andre Bato Films
Edit: Nicky Keros
Sound Design: Jean Sound Design Studio