Tokyo Zoom 1.0: Marathon Grand Championships

The speed of Japan is possibly the sports worlds largest secret. They lead the world in sub 3 hour marathon finishers,

more sub-2:10 marathon finishers than the US in 2018 and Hakone Ekiden is one of the most popular running events, most watched in the world. Our goal was the not only bring this to the forefront of pop culture in Japan but also to the world.



The tag line translated is “Nothing outruns Japan.” In each execution, “Japan” was a variable. For different executions the word would change to either describe the mindset of Japanese running (ie. Tenacity, Diligence, Fortitude, Instinct, Ambition) or the names of the athlete in view in execution (Ex. “Nothing outruns Suguru”).



We launched Tokyo Zoom through 2 major sporting events; First, the Marathon Grand Championships (the final qualifier for the 2020 Olympics) and Second the 2019 Hakone Ekiden.



For Phase 1: MGC, we included the biggest names in running such as Suguru Osaka, Yuta Shitara, Yuma Hattori and Shogo Nakamura. Though running is a male dominated sport in Japan, Nike featured lead female running athletes, Sae Shigemoto, Riko Matsuzaki and Ayumi Hagiwara, in a creative city domination, through out all physical, digital and retail channels and locations. This is the first time in Japan history female athletes have been featured on equal footing at such a large scale for a running event.