Nike Kids and Soursop Reveal New Back-to-School Campaign Featuring Football Star Virgil Van Dijk

Aug. 22, 2022

Nike has worked with creative consultancy Soursop for its 2022 back-to-school campaign, "Never Done Playing" which is made up of a series of films and photography centred around the idea of "finding the magic in the mundane" - through sport. The campaign rejects traditional back-to-school tropes such as kids in uniform, preferring instead to celebrate the joy of summer by showing families – including Dutch star footballer Virgil van Dijk and his family – transforming mundane, everyday chores into play, and showing how any normal task can be turned into a form of sport. Virgil Van Dijk is featured with his two daughters for the first time in a commercial, and the family is filmed with van Dijk gardening on a Sunday as they turn the everyday tasks in the garden into an epic football match.

The campaign is surreal, playful, and full of energy with the aim of inspiring millennial parents with fun moments created from everyday family life. "Never Done Playing" is led by three hero films directed by India Rose Harris out of award-winning production company KODE and photography from Lucas Garrido. 

The tongue-in-cheek hero film and photography features Dutch football star Virgil van Dijk gardening, before being enticed into an epic game of backyard football with his daughters 

After two lockdowns with bouts of home-schooling, the mundane activities facing parents has multiplied tenfold, making it easy to lose sight of the joy in family life as everything falls into an endless sea of to-do lists and chores. Based on Nike's research, it became evident that sport could be a key factor to families having fun again. Even in the most mundane moments, if parents can embrace their 'inner kid' they could turn the everyday into the extraordinary through family play.

Soursop's affinity with engaging younger audiences made them the perfect match for Nike to create a campaign aimed at social media friendly millennial parents, ahead of the 'back to school' moment. This campaign marks a new way of approaching this highlight in the children's calendar for the brand, by focusing on holding on to summer fun, instead of blending into the sea of school uniform commercials this time of year is known for.

This is the third time Nike has collaborated with Soursop since creating Emma Raducanu’s Wimbledon campaign earlier this summer and a community-based campaign with Nike Berlin last year.

"Never Done Playing" launches today across all Nike EMEA platforms, with OOH assets in all major Nike stores, and films playing across Nike social media platforms and nike.com.