I Love This. It’s a cool mix between hip-hop, basketball and the samurai/kung-fu/manga history which threads through the Wu-tang clan’s, and particularly RZA’s, career history. The music, the manga comic look and the story and tie in very well to the brands values. Mostly I like it because it all just works so well together.
Putting RZA into the mix definitely makes the entire messaging of the ad and the look and feel absolutely surreal but consistent and understandable given the target market which Nike wants to target. I wouldn’t say it was much of a risk, or at least Nike had mitigated the risk fairly well by tying in Basketball into the mix which makes perfect sense in the context it’s playing in the ad itself. basketball has always been involved with Hip-Hop, and this is just a very, very cool remix to drive home the point… along with some Confucian, self-exploratory, kung-fu philosophy thrown in for good measure.
