by Brendan Dunne
While Nike's dominance in the streets of New York City can't be questioned in 2015, there was a time when company co-founder Phil Knight was worried about the brand losing its relevance in the Big Apple. To fix things he called in Wieden+Kennedy, the agency behind a bunch of groundbreaking Nike campaigns.
W+K's John C. Jay (Who went on to become the global creative director for the legendary agency) won the pitch in 1993 and told the story of the resulting spots on his Tumblr this week. To effectively talk to the city in its own language, W+K connected with streetball historian, DJ and polymath Bobbito Garcia in what was one of the first instances of Nike reaching out to influencers for a co-sign.
The project was known internally as City Attack, and helped establish a new way for Nike to talk to consumers in their own language. It was also the start of a long partnership between Bobbito and Nike, who would go on to collaborate on several sneakers together.
Read the full story of how the NYC City Attack campaign came to be via John C. Jay here.
