Inside Nike's New Creator Strategy

Nike's new casting brief is, above all, shorter. Where the company's briefs once ran to forty or fifty names across a global campaign, the current cycle is being organized around a handful of long-term partners — signed for years, not seasons.

The internal thinking, according to people familiar with the shift, is that the brand has more to gain from depth than from breadth. A creator who wears the product for three years tells a more convincing story than thirty who wear it for three weeks.

The strategy is not unique to Nike. It is, however, being executed there with the discipline of a company that has spent forty years learning how to sell a shoe.