Tag (advertisement)
Encyclopedia
Tag is a television and cinema advertisement
launched by Nike Inc. in 2001 to promote its line of sportswear
in the United States
. It was one of four pieces forming the television component of the $25m "Play" campaign, which had been running for several months. Tag was created by advertising agency
Wieden+Kennedy
. Production was handled by production company
Gorgeous Enterprises
, who assigned director Frank Budgen
to oversee the project. Filming took place in Toronto
, Ontario
.
The commercial premiered on American television on 25 June 2001, and ran until Labor Day
(3 September). It was supported by three additional television and cinema commercials, titled Shaderunner, Tailgating, and Racing, which ran concurrently. There was also a significant offline campaign, comprising public events in the streets of major American cities, and invitation-only parties at Niketown stores attended by celebrities. Tag, and its associated campaign, were a huge critical success, garnering dozens of awards from the advertising and television industries, including the Grand Prix at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
. Tag was one of the ten most-awarded commercials of 2002, and its impact was such that in 2010 it was voted one of the top ten advertisements of the decade by Campaign magazine.
. People begin to scatter in all directions away from him. He runs down the street to a bus, which promptly shuts its door on him and pulls away. People lock themselves into their cars as he approaches, while others duck into nearby buildings; one hides himself in the opposite side of a revolving door
to avoid being tagged. Crowds empty off the streets, while others huddle in lines behind the partial cover given by wastebins, scattering when they are spotted.
The tagged man chases a group into a subway station, where they cram themselves into a departing train. He manages to jam his arm between the closing doors, but the people in reach shrink away. He frustratedly pulls his arm out of the door and, after glancing to his left, begins strolling nonchalantly past the train, its occupants jammed against the window watching him. The camera cuts ahead to reveal a lone straggler who failed to make it onto the train. As he spots the tagged man, he turns to flee and the commercial ends with the pair continuing the chase outside of the view of the camera, a superimposed swoosh
accompanying the campaign tagline, "Play".
has worked with advertising agency
Wieden+Kennedy
(W+K) since the agency's founding in 1982, having left its previous agency, McCann Erickson
with W+K founders Dan Wieden
and David Kennedy
. While its trademark swoosh
had been established at McCann, it was W+K who settled upon the "Just Do It" slogan and ethos which Nike has espoused to the present day. Nike was, at the time, a relatively small and unknown but, over the next few years, Nike's share of the sportswear market grew consistently. The company entered into a rivalry with British firm Reebok
for the top spot in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, through extensive sponsorship of prominent athletes such as Michael Jordan
, Nike's market share
overtook that of Reebok and the company became the largest brand of sportswear in the United States.
W+K's strategy for Nike had consistently been to eschew targeting specific target markets
, favouring advertisements and sponsorships of athletes with wide general appeal. The approach was successful; by 2001, Nike's U.S. sales were three times that of their nearest competitor, Reebok. However, Reebok had just launched an aggressive new campaign for their new RBK
line of shoes, backed by celebrities such as Allen Iverson
, Jadakiss
, R Kelly, and Missy Elliott
. They also had just signed a 10-year deal to provide equipment and uniforms to the NBA, a contract previously held by Nike. Other companies, such as Adidas
and New Balance
were also eating away at Nike's market share.
While Nike's campaigns (including 9000 Shots, Hello World, and Move, among others) were designed with no particular demographic in mind, they appealed more to personalities who took sports seriously. It was with this in mind that, in 2001, W+K proposed a new campaign aimed at those with a more lighthearted approach to sports, aiming to promote the wearing of Nike sportswear as fashionable in everyday life, as well as in athletic environments.
Hal Curtis. Several ideas for the television and cinema component of the campaign were discussed, and the four eventually settled upon were given the working title
s of Shaderunner, Tailgating, Racing, and Tag. Each of the four were set in an urban environment and emphasised some aspect of friendly or fun competition in a non-sports context, and eschewed the use of celebrities. According to copywriter
Mike Byrne, Tag was based on a PBS documentary on the concept of play
and on an encounter he had had with a young girl playing at an airport.
W+K contracted production company
Gorgeous Enterprises
to handle production of the four television spots. Direction
would be split between Frank Budgen
(Tag, Racing, and Shaderunner) and Tom Carty (Tailgating). Budgen, known for his previous work on spots such as Bet on Black
for Guinness
and Hero's Return for Stella Artois
, immediately began assembling a crew and scouting potential locations for the shoot. When the team arrived at the final location, several blocked-off streets of the Canadian city of Toronto
, the weather was bad enough to force the team to rewrite the script in order to finish on schedule.
While 400 extras were recruited from agencies for Tag, the actor playing the piece's protagonist was chosen from the street outside the set just before filming began. The crew shot on 16 mm film
using three cameras to allow editors to cut to different perspectives while keeping each scene to one take
. Art director
Andy Fackrell warmly welcomed the technique, commenting: "When you can get it all in one take, it becomes more natural. The camera zooms in on the guy's face when he has to make a decision. You feel for the guy."
in early September. Tag was supported on-air by its sister pieces Shaderunner, Tailgating, Racing, online by the "Play" website, and off-air by a significant outdoor and event campaign
. For the outdoor component of "Play", W+K hired teams of street art
ists in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to sketch playground games such as hopscotch
on the pavement outside of prominent businesses, together with the Nike swoosh and the campaign name and website.
Events included the "Summer of Play" sponsored parties, in which Nike invited celebrities such as Snoop Dogg
, Leonardo di Caprio and Tobey Maguire
to attend its Niketown stores from 1 August, and "creative sports" competitions run by Nike organisers for the public on the streets of New York and Los Angeles. The online component of the compaign, designed by Vancouver
-based company Blast Radius, comprised a dedicated website, e-mail competitions and online games. It was the first Nike advertising campaign to make use of user-submitted video—people would upload clips of themselves or others at play, and the campaign team ran them on the "Play" website and invited others to comment.
Tag, and its associated campaign, was a financial and critical success. Nike's profits for the quarter following the release of the campaign rose 8.3%, despite the fact that sales in the United States fell 2% in the same period, likely due to the economic turmoil following the September 11 attacks. Nike ended the fiscal year with sales up 5.5%. It was successful in shifting public and media perceptions of the brand. It was seen as a herald of a trend in advertising towards the promotion of childhood and pre-adolescent innocence. Reaction to the campaign, and Tag in particular, was largely positive within the advertising community. Stefano Hatfield of The Guardian
said of Tag: "a beautifully directed TV commercial with perfect timing" while Bob Garfield of Advertising Age
referred to it as: "breathtaking in its conception, its choreography, its wry sensibility, and—beneath its exceedingly complex production—its sheer simplicity" The television components of the campaign went on to win a significant number of awards, including honours at the Clio Awards
, the London International Awards, and the Andy Awards, among others.
Following these successes, Tag was pipped as a prime candidate for the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
, considered the most prestigious award in the advertising industry. Its primary competition was seen to be Champagne for Microsoft
's Xbox
video game console
, Beware of Things Made in October for Fox Sports
, and Odyssey for Levi's jeans
. Ultimately, Tag took home the prize, marking the second time Nike received the prize in four years. Other components of the "Play" campaign also saw success at the ceremony, with Shaderunner receiving a Gold and Tailgating taking home a Bronze in different categories.
off of the top spot for the first time in ten years. Its impact was such that in 2010 it was voted one of the top ten advertisements of the decade by Campaign magazine, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2010 Clio Awards. Frank Budgen went on to direct several other award-winning advertisements, including Mountain
for the Sony Playstation in 2003, which won him a second Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. While satisfied with the results of the campaign, Nike returned to its strategy of celebrity endorsement and event sponsorships. In 2002, Nike launched the "Move" campaign to coincide with its sponsorship of the 2002 Winter Olympics
, and the company signed a $90,000,000 endorsement deal with basketball star LeBron James
.
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
launched by Nike Inc. in 2001 to promote its line of sportswear
Sportswear
Sportswear or activewear is clothing, including footwear, worn for sport or physical exercise. Sport-specific clothing is worn for most sports and physical exercise, for practical, comfort or safety reasons....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was one of four pieces forming the television component of the $25m "Play" campaign, which had been running for several months. Tag was created by advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
Wieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...
. Production was handled by production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises is a London-based film production company co-founded by Chris Palmer, Frank Budgen, and Paul Rothwell. The company works largely in the production of television advertisements, feature films, and music videos. It was formed by Chris Palmer in 1996, but legally became a new...
, who assigned director Frank Budgen
Frank Budgen (director)
Frank Budgen is a British commercial director and co-founder of Gorgeous Enterprises, a London-based film production company. He was voted as the Directors Guild of America commercial director of the year in 2007...
to oversee the project. Filming took place in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
.
The commercial premiered on American television on 25 June 2001, and ran until Labor Day
Labor Day
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
(3 September). It was supported by three additional television and cinema commercials, titled Shaderunner, Tailgating, and Racing, which ran concurrently. There was also a significant offline campaign, comprising public events in the streets of major American cities, and invitation-only parties at Niketown stores attended by celebrities. Tag, and its associated campaign, were a huge critical success, garnering dozens of awards from the advertising and television industries, including the Grand Prix at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
. Tag was one of the ten most-awarded commercials of 2002, and its impact was such that in 2010 it was voted one of the top ten advertisements of the decade by Campaign magazine.
Sequence
Tag opens with a sequence of shots of a modern metropolis, bustling with cars and pedestrian traffic. An unidentified person approaches a man on the street and places their hand on his shoulder, then flees before their target can turn around. The man looks exasperated for a moment as he realises that he has just been tagged as "It" in a city-wide game of TagTag (game)
Tag is a playground game played worldwide that involves one or more players chasing other players in an attempt to tag or touch them, usually with their fingers. There are many variations...
. People begin to scatter in all directions away from him. He runs down the street to a bus, which promptly shuts its door on him and pulls away. People lock themselves into their cars as he approaches, while others duck into nearby buildings; one hides himself in the opposite side of a revolving door
Revolving door
A revolving door typically consists of three or four doors that hang on a center shaft and rotate around a vertical axis within a cylindrical enclosure. Revolving doors are energy efficient as they prevent drafts, thus preventing increases in the heating or cooling required for the building...
to avoid being tagged. Crowds empty off the streets, while others huddle in lines behind the partial cover given by wastebins, scattering when they are spotted.
The tagged man chases a group into a subway station, where they cram themselves into a departing train. He manages to jam his arm between the closing doors, but the people in reach shrink away. He frustratedly pulls his arm out of the door and, after glancing to his left, begins strolling nonchalantly past the train, its occupants jammed against the window watching him. The camera cuts ahead to reveal a lone straggler who failed to make it onto the train. As he spots the tagged man, he turns to flee and the commercial ends with the pair continuing the chase outside of the view of the camera, a superimposed swoosh
Swoosh
Swoosh is the symbol of the athletic shoe and clothing manufacturer Nike. It is among the most easily recognized brand logos in the world.-History:...
accompanying the campaign tagline, "Play".
Background
Sportswear company Nike, Inc.Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
has worked with advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
Wieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...
(W+K) since the agency's founding in 1982, having left its previous agency, McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson
McCann Erickson is a global advertising agency network, with offices in more than 130 countries. McCann is a subsidiary of the Interpublic Group of Companies, one of the four large holding companies in the advertising industry....
with W+K founders Dan Wieden
Dan Wieden
Dan Wieden is an American advertising executive who co-founded Wieden+Kennedy, and who coined the Nike tagline "Just Do It".He and David Kennedy were listed as number 22 on the Advertising Age 100 ad people of the 20th century...
and David Kennedy
David Kennedy (advertising)
David Kennedy is an American advertising executive who co-founded Wieden+Kennedy . He and Dan Wieden were listed as number 22 on the Advertising Age 100 ad people of the 20th century.-Early life:...
. While its trademark swoosh
Swoosh
Swoosh is the symbol of the athletic shoe and clothing manufacturer Nike. It is among the most easily recognized brand logos in the world.-History:...
had been established at McCann, it was W+K who settled upon the "Just Do It" slogan and ethos which Nike has espoused to the present day. Nike was, at the time, a relatively small and unknown but, over the next few years, Nike's share of the sportswear market grew consistently. The company entered into a rivalry with British firm Reebok
Reebok
Reebok International Limited, a subsidiary of the German sportswear company Adidas since 2005, is a producer of Athletic shoes, apparel, and accessories. The name comes from the Afrikaans spelling of rhebok, a type of African antelope or gazelle...
for the top spot in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, through extensive sponsorship of prominent athletes such as Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...
, Nike's market share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
overtook that of Reebok and the company became the largest brand of sportswear in the United States.
W+K's strategy for Nike had consistently been to eschew targeting specific target markets
Target audience
In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which the marketing message is aimed .....
, favouring advertisements and sponsorships of athletes with wide general appeal. The approach was successful; by 2001, Nike's U.S. sales were three times that of their nearest competitor, Reebok. However, Reebok had just launched an aggressive new campaign for their new RBK
RBK
As a three letter acronym, RBK may refer to:* Reebok, a company specializing in sportswear and goods, or a brand of sportswear made by Reebok.* Rosenborg BK , a Norwegian football club...
line of shoes, backed by celebrities such as Allen Iverson
Allen Iverson
Allen Ezail Iverson is an American professional basketball point guard and shooting guard. He was selected by the Philadelphia 76ers with the number one pick in the 1996 NBA Draft. He was named the NBA Rookie of the Year in the 1996–97 season...
, Jadakiss
Jadakiss
Jason Phillips , better known as Jadakiss, is an American rapper. He is a member of the group The LOX. Jadakiss is one of the three owners of the imprint known as D-Block. In early 2007, Jadakiss signed to Roc-a-Fella Records / Def Jam Records.-Early life:By the age of 16, Jadakiss was a freestyle...
, R Kelly, and Missy Elliott
Missy Elliott
Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott , is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actressA five-time Grammy Award winner, Elliott, with record sales of over seven million in the United States, is the only female rapper to have five albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one...
. They also had just signed a 10-year deal to provide equipment and uniforms to the NBA, a contract previously held by Nike. Other companies, such as Adidas
Adidas
Adidas AG is a German sports apparel manufacturer and parent company of the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company , and Rockport...
and New Balance
New Balance
New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. , best known as simply New Balance, is a footwear manufacturer based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. It was founded in 1906 as the New Balance Arch Support Company...
were also eating away at Nike's market share.
While Nike's campaigns (including 9000 Shots, Hello World, and Move, among others) were designed with no particular demographic in mind, they appealed more to personalities who took sports seriously. It was with this in mind that, in 2001, W+K proposed a new campaign aimed at those with a more lighthearted approach to sports, aiming to promote the wearing of Nike sportswear as fashionable in everyday life, as well as in athletic environments.
Production
This campaign, titled "Play", was handled by a five-man team overseen directly by Dan Wieden and creative directorCreative Director
A creative director is a position often found within the graphic design, film, music, fashion, advertising, media or entertainment industries, but may be useful in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well....
Hal Curtis. Several ideas for the television and cinema component of the campaign were discussed, and the four eventually settled upon were given the working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...
s of Shaderunner, Tailgating, Racing, and Tag. Each of the four were set in an urban environment and emphasised some aspect of friendly or fun competition in a non-sports context, and eschewed the use of celebrities. According to copywriter
Copywriting
Copywriting is the use of words and ideas to promote a person, business, opinion or idea. Although the word copy may be applied to any content intended for printing , the term copywriter is generally limited to promotional situations, regardless of the medium...
Mike Byrne, Tag was based on a PBS documentary on the concept of play
Play (activity)
Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...
and on an encounter he had had with a young girl playing at an airport.
W+K contracted production company
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises
Gorgeous Enterprises is a London-based film production company co-founded by Chris Palmer, Frank Budgen, and Paul Rothwell. The company works largely in the production of television advertisements, feature films, and music videos. It was formed by Chris Palmer in 1996, but legally became a new...
to handle production of the four television spots. Direction
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
would be split between Frank Budgen
Frank Budgen (director)
Frank Budgen is a British commercial director and co-founder of Gorgeous Enterprises, a London-based film production company. He was voted as the Directors Guild of America commercial director of the year in 2007...
(Tag, Racing, and Shaderunner) and Tom Carty (Tailgating). Budgen, known for his previous work on spots such as Bet on Black
Bet on Black
Bet on Black, occasionally referred to as "Snail Race", is an advertising campaign run in 2000 by Diageo to promote Guinness-brand stout in the United Kingdom. The piece, directed by Frank Budgen, follows a snail race taking place in a town of Latin American appearance...
for Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
and Hero's Return for Stella Artois
Stella Artois
Stella Artois is a 5% ABV lager brewed in Leuven, Belgium since 1926. In the UK, Canada and New Zealand a 4% ABV version is also available.-Production:...
, immediately began assembling a crew and scouting potential locations for the shoot. When the team arrived at the final location, several blocked-off streets of the Canadian city of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, the weather was bad enough to force the team to rewrite the script in order to finish on schedule.
While 400 extras were recruited from agencies for Tag, the actor playing the piece's protagonist was chosen from the street outside the set just before filming began. The crew shot on 16 mm film
16 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
using three cameras to allow editors to cut to different perspectives while keeping each scene to one take
Take
A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production.-Film:In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup"...
. Art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
Andy Fackrell warmly welcomed the technique, commenting: "When you can get it all in one take, it becomes more natural. The camera zooms in on the guy's face when he has to make a decision. You feel for the guy."
Release and reception
The "Play" campaign ran in the United States throughout the summer of 2001, opening with 90-second cuts of Tag on 25 June. The following week, the spots were shortened to 60 seconds, which continued to run until Labor DayLabor Day
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
in early September. Tag was supported on-air by its sister pieces Shaderunner, Tailgating, Racing, online by the "Play" website, and off-air by a significant outdoor and event campaign
Out-of-home advertising
Out-of-home advertising is made up of more than 100 different formats, totaling $6.99 billion in annual revenues in 2008 in the USA. Outdoor advertising is essentially any type of advertising that reaches the consumer while he or she is outside the home...
. For the outdoor component of "Play", W+K hired teams of street art
Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
ists in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to sketch playground games such as hopscotch
Hopscotch
Hopscotch is a children's game that can be played with several players or alone. Hopscotch is a popular playground game.- Court and rules :- The court :...
on the pavement outside of prominent businesses, together with the Nike swoosh and the campaign name and website.
Events included the "Summer of Play" sponsored parties, in which Nike invited celebrities such as Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. , better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Snoop is best known as a rapper in the West Coast hip hop scene, and for being one of Dr. Dre's most notable protégés. Snoop Dogg was a Crip gang member while in high school...
, Leonardo di Caprio and Tobey Maguire
Tobey Maguire
Tobias Vincent "Tobey" Maguire is an American actor and producer. He began his career in the 1980s, and has achieved his greatest fame for his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films.-Early life:...
to attend its Niketown stores from 1 August, and "creative sports" competitions run by Nike organisers for the public on the streets of New York and Los Angeles. The online component of the compaign, designed by Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
-based company Blast Radius, comprised a dedicated website, e-mail competitions and online games. It was the first Nike advertising campaign to make use of user-submitted video—people would upload clips of themselves or others at play, and the campaign team ran them on the "Play" website and invited others to comment.
Tag, and its associated campaign, was a financial and critical success. Nike's profits for the quarter following the release of the campaign rose 8.3%, despite the fact that sales in the United States fell 2% in the same period, likely due to the economic turmoil following the September 11 attacks. Nike ended the fiscal year with sales up 5.5%. It was successful in shifting public and media perceptions of the brand. It was seen as a herald of a trend in advertising towards the promotion of childhood and pre-adolescent innocence. Reaction to the campaign, and Tag in particular, was largely positive within the advertising community. Stefano Hatfield of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
said of Tag: "a beautifully directed TV commercial with perfect timing" while Bob Garfield of Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
referred to it as: "breathtaking in its conception, its choreography, its wry sensibility, and—beneath its exceedingly complex production—its sheer simplicity" The television components of the campaign went on to win a significant number of awards, including honours at the Clio Awards
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
, the London International Awards, and the Andy Awards, among others.
Following these successes, Tag was pipped as a prime candidate for the Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
, considered the most prestigious award in the advertising industry. Its primary competition was seen to be Champagne for Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
, Beware of Things Made in October for Fox Sports
Fox Sports (USA)
Fox Sports is a division of the Fox Broadcasting Company . It was formed in 1994 with Fox's acquisition of broadcast rights to National Football League games...
, and Odyssey for Levi's jeans
Jeans
Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...
. Ultimately, Tag took home the prize, marking the second time Nike received the prize in four years. Other components of the "Play" campaign also saw success at the ceremony, with Shaderunner receiving a Gold and Tailgating taking home a Bronze in different categories.
Legacy
The campaign continued to receive awards throughout 2002. According to The Gunn Report, by December Tag was one of the ten most-awarded commercials of the year, Frank Budgen was the most-awarded director, and Nike was the most-awarded brand—knocking VolkswagenVolkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
off of the top spot for the first time in ten years. Its impact was such that in 2010 it was voted one of the top ten advertisements of the decade by Campaign magazine, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2010 Clio Awards. Frank Budgen went on to direct several other award-winning advertisements, including Mountain
Mountain (advertisement)
Mountain is a 2003 television and cinema advertisement launched by Sony Corporation to promote the PlayStation 2 video game console. The budget for production and advertising space purchases for the 60-second piece amounted to £5m across all markets...
for the Sony Playstation in 2003, which won him a second Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. While satisfied with the results of the campaign, Nike returned to its strategy of celebrity endorsement and event sponsorships. In 2002, Nike launched the "Move" campaign to coincide with its sponsorship of the 2002 Winter Olympics
2002 Winter Olympics
The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event that was celebrated in February 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated in 78 events in fifteen disciplines, held throughout...
, and the company signed a $90,000,000 endorsement deal with basketball star LeBron James
LeBron James
LeBron Raymone James is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "King James", he was a three-time "Mr. Basketball" of Ohio in high school, and was highly promoted in the national media as a future NBA superstar while a...
.