Nike dropped a six-minute World Cup ad last week and social media, particularly Linkedin, is ablaze with opinion.

I’ve watched some of it. Two minutes, to be exact. How then, am I qualified to have an opinion on it?

Precisely because I’ve watched two minutes of it.

Into short film territory

Well let’s reiterate, it’s an ad. A six-minute ad. My first thought before clicking on the link was why not 10 minutes? Or 15? Or an hour? What is the upper limit of the time length for a piece of advertising? For me, six minutes is short film territory. I need a cast, ideally a hero and possibly an adversary. There were some candidates in the Nike ad, but I was uncertain who I was rooting for. The director was clearly the villain.

In a short film, we need jeopardy, a story that builds, a reveal, an “all is lost” moment, a triumphant comeback – something that keeps our attention because we’re so invested in the story.

Two minutes into the Nike ad, I’d seen a lot of football. No problem there, it’s an ad for the World Cup. But it didn’t go anywhere. Well, geographically it did, but the story didn’t build. It felt like it would be four minutes of more of........

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