The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2020–2021
Nike splices 72 archive clips into one athlete — 'You Can't Stop Us' wins Film Grand Prix
With stadiums empty, W+K matched 53 athletes across 72 archive clips in one split-screen film — Cannes Film Grand Prix and Emmy winner.
Nike
What it had to solve
In July 2020 professional sport was returning from its COVID-19 shutdown, with the NBA restarting inside an Orlando quarantine bubble. Nike wanted the next chapter of its 'You Can't Stop Us' campaign to say that athletes and fans had kept going and that sport unites people — and the film had to land at the exact moment play resumed.
How it works
In late July 2020, live sport was returning from its pandemic shutdown: the NBA restarted inside a quarantine 'bubble' in Orlando, and Nike timed its third 'You Can't Stop Us' film to the league's opening night. Narrated by footballer Megan Rapinoe, the 90-second spot argued that closed gyms and empty stadiums had not stopped athletes from pushing forward — and that sport still shows what unity and an equal playing field look like.
The film contained no new performances. Wieden+Kennedy Portland, director Oscar Hudson of Pulse Films and editors Peter Wiedensmith and Jessica Baclesse built it from archive: after researching more than 4,000 pieces of footage they selected 72 clips — 53 athletes across 24 sports, from Serena Williams and LeBron James to everyday runners — and arranged them as 36 split-screen pairings in which one athlete's movement becomes the next's: a dive turns into a swimmer's entry, a sprint turns into a jump. More than 1,000 hours of compositing went into making the seams invisible.
The craft carried the message. Because the pairings made differences of sport, era, gender and background visibly collapse into one continuous human motion, unity was shown rather than claimed; Rapinoe's narration tied the motion to change, ending on the line 'when things aren't fair, we'll come together for change.'
The film swept the awards circuit: Adweek called it the best ad of 2020; at Cannes Lions 2021 it won the Film Grand Prix and a Bronze in Film Craft; and in September 2021 it won the Emmy for outstanding commercial — the third for the Nike and W+K partnership.
Why it lands
- The idea was the technique: matching motion across more than 4,000 pieces of footage made a 90-second visual argument that all athletes move as one, with no dialogue needed to sell unity.
- Constraint became concept: with stadiums empty and new shoots difficult, W+K treated the archive as abundance and put the entire message in the edit bay.
- It showed rather than claimed: viewers watch one athlete's arc become another's dive, so the 'you can't stop us' line lands as evidence, not slogan.
- The scale of the craft generated its own news cycle — 1,000-plus hours of compositing and 36 invisible pairings became the story press and juries repeated.
- By pairing superstars with everyday athletes in the same continuous motion, the film made inclusion and perseverance feel physically true rather than rhetorical.
What it did
Adweek named it the best ad of 2020; at Cannes Lions 2021 it won the Film Grand Prix plus a Bronze in Film Craft, and in September 2021 it took the Emmy for outstanding commercial — Nike and W+K's third. The split-screen montage became a reference point for pandemic-era, archive-led filmmaking across industry press.
What you can take
When you cannot shoot new footage, the edit becomes the idea: mining an archive and matching motion frame-by-frame made a 90-second argument for unity that no talking-head ad could match.
Since then
The Emmy capped a run that made 'You Can't Stop Us' a reference point for archive-led filmmaking during the pandemic, and Nike kept the campaign running with further chapters across its markets. The split-screen device was widely imitated in sports advertising in 2020–2021, and the film's editor Peter Wiedensmith left JOINT in summer 2021 to co-found the editorial shop Academy, with the Nike project among the defining work of his career.
Sources
- Nike's Exhilarating Split-Screen Epic Shows Why You Can't Stop Sport
- Nike's Unifying Ad 'You Can't Stop Us' Wins Emmy for Year's Best Commercial
- Nike 'You Can't Stop Us' Editor Peter Wiedensmith of Academy Discusses Film Grand Prix
- A Remarkable Split-Screen Montage for Nike Juxtaposes Athletes in Synchronized Movement
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card