A return to competitive edge
Nike launches "Winning Isn't For Everyone" on July 19, 2024, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.1, 2, 3 Created by Wieden+Kennedy Portland, the campaign opens with a 90 second brand film narrated by actor Willem Dafoe and extends across out-of-home, social, retail, and athlete-led activations during the Games.1, 2 The work signals a deliberate return to the brand's most recognised creative register, after several years in which Nike's marketing leans into broader, more inclusive sports messaging.4
The hero film opens on Dafoe asking, "Am I a bad person?" before listing the traits that elite competitors live with, including being single-minded, obsessive, and dismissive of conventional notions of fair play.4 The script is structured as an unapologetic monologue in defence of the competitive instinct. It features Nike sponsored athletes such as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, LeBron James, Sha'Carri Richardson, Vini Jr., Serena Williams, and A'ja Wilson, each shown in moments of intense focus rather than in the more aspirational, emotionally generous tone Nike has favoured in recent years.1, 4
Source: NikeHongkong Youtube
A strategic reset, not a tactical one
The campaign is widely interpreted as a strategic reset of Nike's brand voice.2, 5 The late 2010s saw the brand take a more values-driven posture across films such as "Dream Crazy" with Colin Kaepernick (2018) and "You Can't Stop Us" (2020), both also created with Wieden+Kennedy.3 The Paris Olympics campaign acknowledges that lineage while explicitly returning to the harder-edged tone of earlier work, including the 1996 film "You Don't Win Silver, You Lose Gold".4 Nicole Hubbard Graham, who returns as Chief Marketing Officer in 2024, frames the work as a corrective to a period in which performance, competitive excellence, and the visible Swoosh had drifted toward the background of the brand's communications.1, 5
Caleb Jensen and Blair Warren, chief creative officers at Wieden+Kennedy's Portland office, lead the creative direction.4 The studio shot film is intercut with archive sport footage and original athlete material captured in the months before the Games. Typography is minimal, the Swoosh appears at the close, and music sits below the spoken word, leaving the athletes and Dafoe's narration to carry the weight of the message.
A larger Paris program
"Winning Isn't For Everyone" serves as the umbrella for an Olympics push that includes a follow-up Paralympics film, athlete portrait films, in-store environments at Nike retail across Europe and Asia, Champs-Élysées installations, and Nike's most extensive Paris activation in two decades.1, 2 The campaign frames the brand's product lineage from Air Max to ZoomX as the technical context behind the athletes' performances, but does so through implication rather than explicit product feature.
The result is a Paris 2024 program that places competition, ambition, and personal commitment back at the centre of Nike's brand voice, while preserving the cultural awareness that has defined the brand's strongest recent work.
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. NIKE, Inc. Newsroom, "Watch: Great Athletes Remind the World There's Nothing Wrong with Wanting to Win", for the campaign debuting on 19 July 2024 with a film narrated by Willem Dafoe, for the Nike athletes it names, among them Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, LeBron James, Sha'Carri Richardson, Vini Jr., Serena Williams, Qinwen Zheng and A'ja Wilson, for the campaign extending into athlete films, social and out of home, for the office of Nicole Graham, Chief Marketing Officer at NIKE, Inc., who calls the work a story about what it takes to be the best, and for the Paralympics addition "Winning Is Winning", a film narrated by Nike athlete Bebe Vio. The two general newsroom addresses listed with this verse are the entry points to that release, news.nike.com redirecting to the newsroom at about.nike.com. https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/winning-isnt-for-everyone-campaign https://news.nike.com/ https://about.nike.com/en/
2. Campaign, four pieces on the campaign, for the Wieden+Kennedy Portland credit, for the anthem film running 90 seconds and having debuted on Friday 19 July 2024, for the athlete roster, for the out of home run across Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix and Portland and more than fifteen further countries, for the reading of the work as deliberately divisive rather than crowd pleasing, and for the Paralympics follow up "Winning Is Winning", narrated by Bebe Vio and made by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, which ran from 28 August 2024. Bailey Calfee, "Nike unveils Olympics campaign, Winning Isn't for Everyone", 19 July 2024, and Bailey Calfee, "Watch: Nike's Winning Isn't for Everyone follow-up for the Paralympics", 26 August 2024, were read at campaignlive.com, the campaignlive.co.uk addresses listed here not being reachable on 18 September 2026. "Nike 'Winning isn't for everyone' by Wieden & Kennedy Portland", 23 July 2024, sits behind the campaignlive.co.uk paywall and was read at campaignlive.com. Of Gen Kobayashi, "Nike's Olympic campaign isn't for everyone… and that's OK", only the headline, byline and standfirst are open to automated requests on 18 September 2026; the strategic reading it carries is corroborated in footnote 5. https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nike-unveils-olympics-campaign-winning-isnt-everyone/1881489 https://www.campaignlive.com/article/nike-unveils-olympics-campaign-winning-isnt-everyone/1881489 https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nike-winning-isnt-everyone-wieden-kennedy-portland/1881600 https://www.campaignlive.com/article/nike-winning-isnt-everyone-wieden-kennedy-portland/1881600 https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nikes-olympic-campaign-isnt-everyone%E2%80%A6-thats-ok/1882527 https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/watch-nikes-winning-isnt-everyone-follow-up-paralympics/1886124 https://www.campaignlive.com/article/watch-nikes-winning-isnt-everyone-follow-up-paralympics/1886124
3. Wikipedia, "2024 Summer Olympics", "Nike, Inc." and "Wieden+Kennedy", all read on 18 September 2026, for the Paris Games running from 26 July to 11 August 2024, for Nike signing Colin Kaepernick to a long term advertising campaign in September 2018, and for Wieden+Kennedy, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, having taken Nike as a client in 1982 and remaining the brand's primary advertising agency. Wieden+Kennedy's own work page for "You Can't Stop Us" carries the 2020 film, made in the Portland office and narrated by Megan Rapinoe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Summer_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieden%2BKennedy https://www.wk.com/work/nike-you-cant-stop-us/
4. Creative Review, three pieces. Eliza Williams, "Nike releases punchy new ad ahead of the Paris Olympics", 22 July 2024, for the film opening on Willem Dafoe asking "Am I a bad person?", for the traits the script sets out, for the seven athletes named in this paragraph, for the comparison with Nike's 1996 campaign "You Don't Win Silver, You Lose Gold", and for the work reading as a shift away from the recent fashion in sports advertising to be inclusive. Imogen Watson, "Karl Lieberman: just a regular guy in a commercial world", 21 November 2024, for the campaign having been led by the chief creative officers Caleb Jensen and Blair Warren from the Portland office, and for Karl Lieberman being Wieden+Kennedy's global chief creative officer, based in New York, rather than the lead on this work. Aimée McLaughlin, "Nike's new campaign shifts the narrative around refugee athletes", 23 May 2024, for the inclusive register of Nike's Paris 2024 work in the months before this campaign, the film "Watch Where We're Going" made with Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam for four members of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. https://www.creativereview.co.uk/nike-ad-paris-olympics/ https://www.creativereview.co.uk/karl-lieberman-wieden-kennedy-advertising-creativity-ideas-opinions/ https://www.creativereview.co.uk/nike-campaign-refugee-olympic-team/
5. NIKE, Inc., "NIKE Announces Leadership Changes to Accelerate the Future of Sport", 14 November 2023, distributed through Business Wire, for Nicole Hubbard Graham, a former 18 year Nike veteran, returning as Chief Marketing Officer, NIKE, Inc. with effect from 2 January 2024. Marketing Dive, Peter Adams, "Nike kicks off marketing comeback with gritty Olympics ads", 22 July 2024, for the campaign being the largest marketing initiative Graham has taken on since stepping into the role at the start of that year, and for Nike framing it as a return to sharper and bolder brand marketing after over focusing on its direct to consumer strategy in recent years. Marketing Dive is off whitelist and used for corroboration only. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231114205066/en/NIKE-Announces-Leadership-Changes-to-Accelerate-the-Future-of-Sport https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nike-summer-olympics-2024-ad-campaign-willem-dafoe/721973/
