Zlatan Zuperfly
- Brand
- Nike
- Year
- 2011
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Stink
Objective
Nike needed to launch the Superfly III boot and its Zlatan Ibrahimović endorsement to football-obsessed teens, and the real target was building an audience for Zlatan's brand-new Facebook page — Nike set a goal of 200,000 fans and wanted to give them something no broadcast angle had ever offered: Zlatan's own view of the pitch.
Solution
You open the game looking out through Zlatan's eyes at a real recorded match, defenders bearing down on you. At each decision point you choose what he does next — beat a man, lay it off, go for goal — and the move plays back as real footage shot from a 360° rig mounted above his head, with slow-motion bullet-time beats and cut scenes stitching one choice into the next. The same experience runs as an app on Zlatan's Facebook page, so every playthrough and share feeds the page directly, and a run ends wherever your choices take the ball.
Results
Zlatan's new Facebook page went from zero to 1.6 million fans over the campaign, about eight times the 200,000-fan target, and six months after launch thousands of users were still playing the game every day.
- 1
The player opens the site, or the Facebook app on Zlatan's fan page, and is invited to step into Zlatan's boots — everything that follows is framed as seen through his own eyes.
- 2
A cut scene sets up the situation on the pitch before control passes to the player.
- 3
Control shifts to real first-person footage shot with a 360° camera mounted above Zlatan's head: the ball is at his feet and a whole opposing team is closing in, and the shot loops so the player can look around the situation before acting rather than being rushed by it.
- 4
At each decision point the player picks from a set of possible next moves for Zlatan — the game runs on choosing what he does next, not on reflexes or dexterity.
- 5
The chosen move plays out as real recorded footage from Zlatan's point of view, dropping into slow-motion bullet time at the key beat so the trick reads clearly.
- 6
Choices chain into new situations and new decisions, carrying the run against the opposing team through to its resolution.
- 7
In the Facebook version the run is tied to Zlatan's fan page, so the player's play and any sharing land there for his followers to see.
