Nike By You
To bring the magic of customizing your own shoes with Nike By You to life, we gave two youth soccer crews the surprise of a lifetime: World Cup superstars Crystal Dunn and Grace Geyoro had secretly nominated them to design their own Phantom Luna cleats.
We captured their stories to celebrate Nike’s first cleats designed by women, for all — lighting up Nike’s digital channels with emotional reveals, joyful unboxings, and design ideas to inspire your own custom cleats through Nike By You.
My role: Freelance Narrative Director, Nike Global Brand Creative
We set a storytelling foundation for the project with upfront narrative direction that brought the athlete, crew, and product stories together.
To orchestrate with the big reveal, we wrote scripts for our athletes to surprise the crews with their nomination, and gathered crew insights to inform on-set interviews.
The element of surprise
The crews
Crystal and Grace hand-picked the grassroots crews closest to their hearts to be the first to customize the Luna. These two youth teams are awesome examples of the power of football to change lives.
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PCFC provides high-quality, affordable club soccer to low-income, immigrant, and refugee youth. They are a safe and inclusive space for LGBTQ+ players.📍 Portland, Oregon
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FDF is an international foundation enabling soccer coaches to become catalysts for girls' equal rights and opportunities, so all girls can shape their own future.📍 Paris, France
The athletes
Crystal and Grace contributed their expert insights to develop the Phantom Luna, and wore it on the pitch during their World Cup matches. When it came time to launch the Luna to the public, we turned to these elite players to decide which young players would be the first to customize their own Lunas.
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Defender for the US Women’s National Team
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Midfielder for the France Women’s National Team
Creating the unboxing experience
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Our awesome writing crew made sure the wayfinding copy inside the box was clear and fun, with little surprises throughout. Shoutout to our friends at Instrument for leading the design of the box itself.
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We broke down the customizable components of the Luna – from color palettes and patterns to personalized tags – in a zine. It even featured a bespoke madlib by our in-house poet Zach Schomburg.
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Since our teams were based in the US and France, with many of our States-based crew members speaking Spanish as their first language, we worked with Nike’s internal localization team to ensure the zines were available in all three languages.
Capturing the magic
We delivered a full suite of digital assets across Nike’s owned and social channels. Below is a quick snapshot.
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Nike.com landing pages
Nike app threads
App notifications & cards
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Instagram reels x2
Instagram carousels x2
Tiktoks x2
Client
Nike
Role
Narrative Director
Dream Team
Zach Schomburg
Megan Flynn
Allison Olson
Samantha Del Rosario
Alex Sulitzer
Aimee Lynn Barneburg'
Aleah Jordan
Annie Jones
Mark Aver
Deliverables
Narrative strategy
Athlete + crew insights
Athlete scripts
On-set interviews
Unboxing experience
Social videos x4
IG carousels x2