Nike Teams Up with Gen. Z to Have Fun and Make a Difference with “Made to Play”

NEW YORK – MAY 16, 2018 – Today’s kids are part of the least active generation ever and may be faced with a shorter lifespan than their parents.” This alarming situation means that we have to get kids moving! Which is why NIKE, Inc.’s (NYSE: NKE) Community Impact team is launching the “60 Second PowerUp” as part of Made to Play – NIKE’s commitment to getting kids moving.

The three-week campaign aims to get kids (ages 7-12) active by educating and activating their older peers ages (13-25) to join the movement to help get kids active. To kick off, NIKE is inviting a group of creative social media influencers who are focused on health, lifestyle and fitness, to partner with them and their global commitment “Made to Play.” This is NIKE’s rallying call to bring sport and play to kids across the world knowing the kids aren’t made to sit still, they’re Made to Play. By taking action, this group of social media influencers will join forces with their fans in six collective teams, competing against each other to unlock donations and awareness for community organizations supporting activity amongst young people, including: Marathon Kids, PeacePlayers, Active Schools, Mamba League, Zoom League, Students Run LA.

“NIKE believes in the power of sport to move the world, starting with kids, so we’re leaning on not-so-recent kids to get inspired and get moving to motivate others to do the same. Together we can help inspire the generation of kids that’s growing up right now” said Jorge Casimiro, Nike Vice President of Global Community Impact. “This is an issue NIKE won’t ignore, and we hope that the impact of creatively bringing both the issue and some potential solutions to social media will ignite a whole new group of change agents to join us in Made to Play.”

About the 60 Second PowerUp Challenge

The 60 Second PowerUp Challenge will be introduced on the influencers’ social channels as they complete their own creative 60 seconds of activity, and invite their followers to complete the same activity or develop their own. The participant call-to-action also asks that they each share their individual 60 seconds of movement through Instagram Stories with the designated challenge hashtag #60SecondPowerUp and #MadeToPlay.

The intent of engaging a unique group of content creators is to underscore that you don’t have to be a sports star to get involved, anybody can do it- in the spirit of NIKE co-founder Bill Bowerman “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” And in that spirit, young people will do more than just watch videos and learn about the activity crisis with this campaign, as they are challenged to Just Do It themselves. Each individual will be challenged to take the simple and immediate first step in combating the activity crisis by moving for 60 seconds then share their one-minute feat on social media to play it forward, and encourage others to do the same.

Influencers Leading the Challenge

The participating young influencers include Bobo Matjila, Alivia D’Andrea, Huge Aparente, Jennie Pegouskie Bentot, Gabriel Padilla, and – Brock DeHaven.