Mark Hoffman: Joga Bonito!
The two-minute mockumentary instantly grabs you. A guy on the street earnestly ponders, “Such a thing might be possible….I didn’t see it myself, but if anyone could do that, it’s Zlatan.” Interviews follow: the coach, the father, the former neighbors.
The suspense builds. Did he do it? Could he do it? Finally, the payoff: the camera zooms in on Swedish soccer phenom Zlatan Ibrahimovic as he casually spits out his gum. He catches it on the side of his shoe and deftly juggles it from left foot to right before launching the wad in a high kick, tipping his head back, and landing the tiny blob, neatly and easily, in his mouth.
From an internationally known athlete like Ibrahimovic, it’s a tiny instant of skilled showmanship turned into a mini-celebration of soccer finesse and spontaneous exuberance. The clip is one of dozens of video broadcasts capturing the attention of soccer fans on Nike’s new all-football online channel, Joga TV, the centerpiece of the company’s “Joga Bonito” (“Play Beautiful”) marketing campaign.
Inspiring Kids
The World Cup is just around the corner, and kids all over the globe are pumped. They’re visiting Nike’s soccer website to watch beloved heroes like Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney, and Cristiano Ronaldo perform stunning moves while Joga TV host Eric Cantano offers serious and not-so-serious lessons in what constitutes beautiful football.
Joga TV even invites players to submit clips of their own moves for possible inclusion in a montage of real kids showing off their ball-handling chops.
“Kids want to see creativity, passion, and lots of skill — with a smile,” says Nike senior content and partnerships manager Ean Lensch, who produced the online content. “That’s the kind of soccer we believe in and advocate. We want to inspire kids to play that way.”
Lean Field Crew
Nike’s ambitious World Cup campaign grew out of close collaboration between the company, its longtime ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy, and its digital agency, Framfab. The bulk of the web broadcasts on Joga TV, however, were created by an on-the-ground crew of just two people: Lensch and independent director, cameraman, and editor Mark Hoffman.
“I’ve never worked on a project quite like it,” says Hoffman. “We came up with many of the ideas ourselves, and I shot and edited all the broadcasts. In most cases, you’d expect to see big agencies and production companies executing a major campaign like this.”
Adds Lensch, “Our decision to keep the operation small wasn’t a compromise. Mark offered the dexterity and efficiency we needed for the quick-turn nature of this project. He was able to integrate with our agencies and see concepts through from start to finish — and do it all from his laptop while on the go.”
Pack Your Mac
Hoffman is an established Los Angeles director and editor — and lifelong soccer player — who jumped at the chance to help conceive, write, shoot, and edit the Joga TV programming. Good thing he’s both fit and flexible. “From the moment I landed at Heathrow,” he recalls with a trace of leftover jet lag, “I was caught up in a whirlwind of constant content production.”
Hoffman spent five frenzied months crisscrossing Europe (Barcelona, London, Madrid, Malmo and Rome, with production stints in Copenhagen) to capture footage of soccer’s biggest players and turn it into 30 video segments, from 45 seconds to three minutes long, that animate the Joga Bonito campaign.
Throughout the grueling production schedule, Hoffman depended on just three easy-to-pack tools: a Sony PAL HDV video camera, Final Cut Pro, and a PowerBook G4. The Mac-based video kit afforded Hoffman the power and flexibility to edit anytime and anywhere.
Many Formats
The Joga Bonito campaign, geared to kids aged 13 to 18, takes careful account of their viewing habits. The online channel appeals to the huge numbers of kids who now go to websites for content they can download to their platform of choice. Explains Lensch, “They can watch Joga TV as streaming video from a laptop or download the QuickTimes to watch on their iPods, mobile phones, or Playstations. They can walk around with it. The idea was to create content that’s available for kids to use the way they want to.”
