Skateboarding is making its Olympics debut in Tokyo. The Olympics committee has made Sky Brown a feature in its campaign to broaden the Games’ audience. Samsung has feature Sky Brown in its campaign to reach its core audience. Facebook is featuring skateboarding in its campaign to put itself at the centre of the sports trend of the moment.
The global campaign, by Droga5, presents true stories of how Facebook apps have brought together skateboarders and skateboarding fans from across the globe and how its technologies and platforms have helped to evolve the sport. The four films in the campaign include one directed by current pop culture icon, FKA Twigs.
“Facebook is proud to celebrate skateboarding and its athletes around the world, as the sport takes the global stage in Tokyo for the first time,” stated Andrew Stirk, Facebook vice president of global company marketing. “Skateboarding is a grassroots sport and culture, centered around connection and community. This work celebrates the authentic stories of skaters using our platforms to find each other, broaden the culture, and push the sport forward.”
“The skateboarding debut at the Olympics this summer felt like the perfect moment to tell stories about how the sport has also evolved to become more inclusive and illustrate the role Facebook’s suite of apps have played — helping people find each other in sports and beyond — to build great things,” stated Felix Richter, Droga5 co-chief creative officer.
The films were shot over 17 days and across four continents.
The FKA Twigs-created spot is called Longboard Family and was created for Facebook Blue App. It documents the community and history of longboarding and longboard dancing, featuring DoYoung Gwon, Ko Hyojoo and Jonbing Jo, the administrators of the Facebook group, Longboard Dancing Lab, which unites longboard dancers in South Korea and globally.
Skate Nation Ghana for Facebook Company was created by a collective of four directors from Daniel Wolfe’s production company, Love Song. It tells the story of how Joshua Odamtten learned to skate by watching videos of Chris Cole. Odamtten eventually launched Skate Nation Ghana, a community to bring skateboarders in Ghana together.
No Comply for Instagram was created by French filmmaker, Yann Demange. It describes how Instagram has brought together skateboarders of different backgrounds from around the world and inspired them to share their own unique takes on the popular “no comply” skate trick.
Once upon a time everywhere for Oculus was directed by Argentinian filmmaker, Juan Cabral.
The campaign builds on Facebook’s Find each other brand platform that launched in March of 2020 and encourages people to connect across Facebook properties to achieve more together. It will include various cross-channel initiatives throughout the Games.
