To understand this campaign, you have to first understand the athlete.

 

Nikola Jokic. 6’11”. Famously dry humor. Treats the NBA like a 9-5. Loves horses. 

 

This year Jokic — “The Joker” — brought Denver its first NBA Championship. Jokic celebrated by booking the first ticket back home to be with his horses. 

 

So how do you create a campaign to celebrate the man who hates doing campaigns and
celebrating himself? You start by understanding the athlete — at a fundamental level — building a campaign from his voice, not Nike’s. Inspired by his famous dry Serbian humor. And based around his ‘Joker’ nickname. This is the story of Nike’s first-ever Nikola Jokic campaign.

 

The idea came to us fairly quickly: What if Nike celebrated ‘The Jokers’ win with a joke? We started with the granddaddy of all jokes; “so a man walks into a bar” and began exploring various ways we could list out Jokic’s accomplishments within this construct.
 

We launched the campaign with a joke on Nike’s social feeds and in OOH and watched as it took over sports media with coverage by outlets and sports fans alike. Our version of the classic joke setup wasn’t humorous. But why would it be? Jokic is no joke himself. 

And finally, we outfitted Jokic with a ‘No Joke’ hat for when he returned to Serbia that he could wear at the next horse race. Media outlets swarmed on Jokic at the races, and in every interview and photo, he could be seen wearing our ‘No Joke’ hat. 

 

Fans across the world fell in-love with the campaign and our ‘No Joke’ line, causing a swarm of counterfeit ‘No Joke’ merch across the internet and resharing of our campaign by nearly every basketball pundit and media publication. 

 

Why did it do so well? It subverted what a win-campaign looks like by channeling the voice of the athlete instead of the brands. By leaning into Jokic’s famous dry humor and ‘Joker’ namesake, we gave the sports world something that felt true to the athlete we all fell in love with.

 

• 4MM impressions OOH. Over 2MM views on Social 

• Under $75K budget

• Concepted and Executed in 4 days. 

• 150+ counterfeit Nike products featuring our ‘No Joke’ line. No joke. 

• 33 Getty Images featuring Jokic in our ‘No Joke’ Hat.

• Jokic’s first Nike campaign. Ever.