An influencer campaign with ‘authentic co-creation’

Creative agency HarrimanSteel developed a social media marketing campaign that gave creative freedom to runners testing out Nike sneakers

Spotted: Shoe giant Nike collaborated with Amsterdam-based creative agency HarrimanSteel on a unique influencer campaign. Through social media posts, a select number of runners documented their experience testing out Nike’s Pegasus Turbo line of sneakers. 

The campaign featured marathon runner Lee Grantham, who has built an Instagram following of over 100,000 since he began posting about his fitness experiences in 2010 (@jungle.vip). Leading up to the release of the new sneaker line, Grantham was tasked with finding runners who would receive a test pair. Grantham and the other runners then posted about their experiences running with the shoes using the hashtag #intersporttestlab. 

After just a few days, the hashtag was mentioned 430,000 times on Instagram and had an overall reach of 1.3 million across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, according to Leah Forsyth, HarrimanSteel’s managing director. 

“Lee speaks in the language of runners, directly to runners, and we wouldn’t dare tell him what to say. Our work involves creating a brand manifesto, and providing cues, but there is no script. We’ve asked him to tell the story in whatever way feels authentic,” Forsyth said of the campaign.