Nike Football + Ronaldinho and "Play Free" / ICNCLST

In 2017, ICNCLST worked with Nike Football’s global marketing team to devise a new category muse, tonality, and emotional North Star. This strategic discovery and definition sprint leveraged ICNCLST’s concept of “Culture, as Design” — illuminating that Football is intrinsically connected to design, from game play tactics to the equipment used on the pitch--as it is to spontaneity. The metaphoric application? Threading the right passes to maintain position, switching the field adeptly from the pitch to culture — and from geo to geo.

The result was recommending Ronaldinho (ICNCLST’s self-described “Warrior Artist”)  as the category’s new muse--with the legendary player functioning as the global game’s talisman for creativity and competition.

This concept was later brought to life with powerful brand creative and copywriting that was produced by Nike and its various creative partners in its seminal “Play Free” BTL and ATL campaign. Ronaldinho’s emotional self-authored letter in the Player’s Tribune with the campaign’s apex expression of this category re-positioning.