A revelatory guide to creativity in business, from the genius behind Nike's greatest campaigns.
INTRODUCTION: THE ART OF SPORT
“I’m looking at a projection screen that’s flanked by more than a hundred flags from nations around the world. The international atmosphere is fitting, because this is Nike’s Sebastian Coe Building, named for the British runner who won the gold medal in the 1500 meters at both the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games. One of Coe’s quotes comes to me now: “Competing is exciting, and winning is exhilarating, but the true prize will always be the self-knowledge and understanding that you have gained along the way.” At the end of a twenty-seven-year journey from design intern to chief marketing officer of the Nike brand, I feel those words. It’s February 2020 and this is my retirement celebration.
On the screen, I see “GH,” my initials. I am surprised — and honored — that it’s been designed in a way that’s reminiscent of the athlete logos we created over the years for the likes of LeBron, Tiger, and Serena. I got my start at Nike in 1992 designing logos for products, athletes, and anything else Nike sent my way. Now, my persona was a logo, bringing it all full circle, and right off the bat my emotions are making their way to the surface.
The evening is full of reminiscences and a word or two of advice (from me) to the people with whom I have worked and who have been my family for nearly three decades. One of the more moving moments is when the new head of creative for the brand, my old friend and protégé Gino Fisanotti, presents me with a gift. It’s a large framed portrait of Colin Kaepernick by the photographer Platon.
You may not know Platon by name, but you likely have seen his work: His signature black-and-white photographs of celebrities, world leaders, athletes, and artists are critically acclaimed for capturing the essence of the person behind the title or reputation. In a single image of, say, Muhammad Ali, you see the human in the boxing legend. In that way, Platon’s portraits don’t look like the heavily art-directed, idealized work one usually attributes to professional photographers. Rather, they are meant to appear like Platon shot his subject in a stolen moment, a brief second where the image slips and the all-too-real person emerges, especially in the eyes. His high-contrast photographs, set against a white background, presents the person and the personality in the rawest way.
That sort of creative genius doesn’t just happen; it must be designed to happen. Like all great art, a Platon portrait is meant to evoke an emotion, but that emotion isn’t accidental. There is a deliberateness in the process, no different from a writer weaving a story. I can’t really tell you how Platon does it; how he’s able to tell a story through his portraits and elicit a response from his audience that exposes some truth about the human experience. But I can tell you how we, as brand marketers, can strive to achieve it.
My passion for fine art on the level of Platon is matched only by my love of sport. At first glance, these appear to be two separate interests, but when we look below the surface of sport we see that it has the ability to stir the purest and most visceral of our emotions; agonies and ecstasies played out on the field and in the stands for us all to feel. As Nelson Mandela once said: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.”
As I looked at Platon’s portrait of Kaepernick, I once more felt the power of art to convey an impression that is both timely and timeless. The portrait was part of a marketing campaign — my last campaign at Nike — but it was also art, designed to be more than a simple photograph. It is imbued with Kaepernick’s personality and passion. At the same time, this portrait is a statement of purpose for Nike: the ability of sport to change the world. The portrait hangs proudly in my home office today because it represents not only great art, but also great brand marketing. Indeed, it is a reminder to me that art and marketing can fulfill the same ends, and often should try to fulfill the same ends.
And, lastly, looking at the portrait, I am reminded about the journey that made it possible. A journey that started roughly five months earlier.
“For those true to themselves on and off the field. Proudly, unapologetically and against all odds. This is only the beginning.”
In August 2019, I went to see Platon in his studio in New York City. Our friendship dated back to 2013, when I, then head of Global Brand Creative for Nike, invited him to speak at one of the company’s “brand camps.” In addition to being a master photographer, Platon is also a master storyteller who has this amazing ability to weave mesmerizing narratives through his singular images. I had the honor of introducing Platon to the audience and interviewed him onstage about his process and some of his most famous portraits. Out of that, our friendship began. The next time we worked together was when I asked him to shoot the Brazil National Football team for Nike, which had sponsored the team and designed its uniforms in 2014, after its Confederations Cup victory. The resulting photographs were iconic Platon, mostly black-and-white images of the players themselves, set against a white background, but with the added splash of yellow highlighting the jerseys: The players are presented as individuals, but the yellow ties them together as a team. Perhaps the true stroke of genius for Platon’s work in Brazil was that he went far beyond what my brief — or work outline — had defined as the project, and ended up shooting not just the athletes but also the passionate Brazilian fans. The finished photographs put both groups side by side. The result was something that transcended mere sport, because his photographs showed how sports and culture are so closely entwined. To ignore the latter in favor of the former is to miss why sports resonates with so many millions around the world.
But when I walked into Platon’s studio that August day, I didn’t come with any plan. We talked as friends, and then Platon mentioned that he was donating his photographs of African-American leaders who had been civil rights champions to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. It is an impressive list of heroes, from Muhammad Ali to Harry Belafonte to Elaine Brown. An insight flashed in my mind.
“You’re missing someone,” I said.
“Who?” he asked.
“Colin Kaepernick.”
Platon replied that he couldn’t get access to someone like Colin. I could help with that. When I left Platon’s studio, I called Gino, who at that time was starting to plan marketing around a new limited-edition Air Force 1 shoe for Colin. Gino, thinking it over, said that a series of Platon portraits of Kaepernick might be a great way to help launch the new sneaker and tell a larger story. And so, the Kaepernick “True to 7” campaign began to become a reality. I flew back to the Nike campus and met with Gino to talk specifics. The idea was simple: Tie the campaign — which featured not only a shoe but also a jersey — to Colin’s “seven values” that informed his belief system through a series of iconic Platon black-and-white portraits. The campaign launched in December 2019. To help promote the campaign, Colin had posted on his Twitter page: “For those true to themselves on and off the field. Proudly, unapologetically and against all odds. This is only the beginning.”
“The creative process doesn’t follow a linear path, and often moments of inspiration come upon you in unlikely places — if you’re open to them.”
And now, one of those Platon portraits hangs in my house, a gift from Gino, whose support, insight, and devotion to our work with Colin was instrumental in making my last Nike project one of the most memorable.
The story of our work with Colin began two years before my visit with Platon, during a lunch get-together at Nike Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. That is a topic for another chapter, but it means that the Platon portrait represented more than the “True to 7” campaign. It was a physical representation of a creative journey that had begun years earlier, during a moment when we listened to Colin to learn what he wanted to say. Platon had never been a part of our designs, not until I met with him at his New York studio. But the creative process doesn’t follow a linear path, and often moments of inspiration come upon you in unlikely places — if you’re open to them. The entirety of our work with Colin Kaepernick was based off the insight that his message, by exposing hard truths about racial injustice, was inextricably tied with sports and the experience of Black Americans. But beyond the social impact of Colin’s message are the lessons the “True to 7” campaign can teach brands. For Colin (and for Nike) there was no distinction between the personal and the professional. He was the same person on the field as he was off, and it was Nike’s responsibility to reveal this person and his passion to the world. Had we focused only on Colin’s message, we would have missed its relevance to sport. Likewise, had we focused only on sport, we would have undercut Colin’s message. The two — the personal and the professional — had to be one.
A lot of the inspiration for this book came from the work with Colin, and from the journey I took during those final years of my Nike tenure, where so many of the lessons and insights I had formed during the previous two and a half decades had come together. The creative philosophy that I wholeheartedly speak to my audiences today, in my capacity as a brand advisor for start-ups and more established companies, was encapsulated with the creative collaboration with Kaepernick, Gino, Platon, and the talented Nike brand team, and forms the basis of this book. Put simply, a brand gains a competitive advantage through its ability to construct powerful emotional bonds with its consumers. I believe this connection can be consistently achieved by cultivating a strong creative culture.
I call this Emotion by Design — the ability to create stories, images, and experiences that make people feel that even their most audacious dreams are possible to achieve. Over the years, I forged this philosophy within a creative culture where ideas were dominant. Now my passion is in instilling this creative marketing and branding philosophy in others, for a key point about Emotion by Design is that it can be practiced and applied by all types of business leaders and teams. The success of this creative methodology isn’t dependent on large resources. An agency of five employees can generate phenomenal success with its branding just as effectively as a company of thousands. Millions of dollars aren’t required to make consumers feel. The emotional connections that form a bond between brand and consumer don’t depend on the size of the brand or its resources; they depend on the power of the story and the depth of the connection.
I also want to refute the notion that not everyone is creative. While the application of ideas — the art directing, the copywriting, the app design, the film directing, to name a few — is reserved for those with expertise in these fields, the conception of those ideas isn’t — and shouldn’t be — limited to “creatives.” Everyone has an imagination; everyone has aspirations and dreams. The trick is instilling a culture and an environment where those imaginations are given space — and are given voice. Too many brands and companies stifle the innate talent of their teams by harnessing their creative energies to preconceived notions and personal biases. These companies at times try to channel their creative minds into highly structured processes and modes of thought — and risk ending up with a brand that can be uninspiring and unconnected with their consumer bases.
Which is why brands must embrace a mindset that invites outside voices into their creative process and encourages these voices to draw upon their unique experiences to inform their work. Diversity and inclusion should be a goal in its own right, but it amazes me that even today, so many companies don’t see why a diversity of experiences, thought, backgrounds, ideas, and values is a prerequisite to build a creative force that can change the world. Creativity grows from the insights we discover that others miss. We find these insights through the diversity of experience in our teams, as well as from our own passion for exploring beyond what we know.”
Extracted from Emotion by Design by Greg Hoffman, out now.
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