Nike x Aja Wilson

Nike’s “One of A’Kind” campaign celebrates community, girlhood, and WNBA star A’ja Wilson, using heartfelt storytelling over product placement. By spotlighting real connections and local roots, Nike turns a shoe launch into a cultural moment

Nike showed up and showed off WNBA star A’ja Wilson this month with a new and exciting shoe collab - the Nike A’One. Their execution? A campaign named "One of A'Kind" with their commercials directed by former US President Barack Obama's daughter, Malia Obama.

The campaign is meant to be a love letter to girlhood and community, which is most definitely not lost on any viewer. The ad plays with the well known tune of Miss Mary Mack as their sound, only Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack, has now been replaced with “A’ja Wilson’s on Top, Top, Top”. We first get an introduction to the remix through two girls on a playground basketball court, playing the famous hand game. The rest of the commercial takes us through what seems to be a creatively and exciting done ad, however, it holds far more sentiment than we realize.

Featured in a clip was the church that A’ja grew up in, and on the wall was a portrait of each of her paternal grandparents. Diving more into that community aspect, we got to see Miss Dawn Staley, an iconic women's basketball coach and A’ja’s former college basketball coach. We even got to see A’jas’ parents make a cameo as the couple sitting on the couch, cheering on their little girl as always.

Not once showing the A’Ones seems to further instill a sense of connection and community with the viewer. Later on their socials, Nike even gave us a few extra videos, one of which features A’ja breaking down the A’One designs and another being a mini ad from the campaign called, “Teaching the Pro,” where a young girl teaches A’ja the new version of the hand game in the main ad. The overall ad was reportedly so successful that 15 minutes after the drop, the A’Ones sold out completely!

This campaign is supposedly meant to be of many to help Nike regain its brand's popularity long term, seeing as their sales in Q3 revenue declined by 9% year-over-year -, their wholesale revenue was down by 7% year-over-year, direct sales decreased by 12% year-over-year, and Nike's direct-to-customer went down 15%.

Will their strategy of bringing back storytelling ads help the brand? Going solely off of this campaign, if they keep it up, then we think they just might get “back on track”.