Lots of us here are proponents of the "new" marketing order, the conversational marketing, the social-media marketing, the subversive marketing....

But now and again some traditional advertising will knock your socks off, and I'm talking about here a Nike poster campaign that is being run in England.

Now, Nike, for once is a bit of an underdog in the football (soccer) market, and is using the World Cup as a platform to communicate that Nike "gets" football, as much as Adidas does. In this case they are doing it with a ballsy image of one of England top footballers painted red to match the red cross of England's St George's Cross flag (FYI the Union Jack is the flag of the United Kingdom of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.)

In many ways, to connect, to get your message across with one image, is an incredible challenge, and graphic designers skilled enough to communicate and connect in an instance are what separate great designers from good designers. I personally think this is a stunning image, and what ever you think of the image, you must give the graphic designer and creative director props for the graphic craft.

Come on England!

The campaign was done by Wieden + Kennedy in London, and they've got a blog post that details a lot of the coverage in the UK

Tip of the Hat