Nike: advert-top-1 by R/GA

The Road to HBL invites fans to live out their own Nike HBL journey via a stylized digital choose your own adventure. Users get first-hand experience of the rigorous training regime, team bonding, pep talks and match excitement from the POV of a young player, creating their own personalized basketball diary and shareable team poster.

A comparatively new basketball platform in China, interest and participation in the HBL is on the rise. Tao Dong, Basketball Brand Digital Director - Greater China, Nike, said that the brand’s ambition was to expand the league further and inspire more athletes by giving them a glimpse of what it’s like to take part.

The R/GA Shanghai team worked closely with real life HBL players, coaches and fans from Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan in order to identify shared experiences. From this, renderings of pivotal moments, team dynamics, key phrases and game technique were crafted in collaboration with production company Final Frontier and directed by Le Cube.

Prototyping was then undertaken to piece them together with user data inputs, resulting in over 700 possible stories, and a range of customizable features from jersey colors through to court position.