A large number of brands in the UK are embracing digital channels to extend their traditional advertising campaigns. In this flooded marketplace, it’s getting harder to stand out.

Couple this with increasingly savvy consumers, fully aware that they hold more power than ever before, and you can appreciate how attracting anyone’s attention, for any length of time, is no mean feat.While ad funded programming is starting to be seen in the UK, a busy TV schedule and an audience that demands premium content, has seen very few successful examples to date.Nike’s ambition is to create digital experiences that demonstrate and sell their products in intelligent and intuitive ways.

To deliver unlimited access, we made the Nike Academy Facebook page the centre of everything we did. Fans of the page watched every step of the creation of the club, from recruitment to the day-to-day activities. Our audience questioned Academy coaches/players and got personalised feedback, trained with pros, including England U21 manager Stuart Pearce and England international Ashley Cole, and saw inside the dressing room.

It was important that the Nike Academy retained its grass-roots heritage. So we seeded the campaign on the Nike Football Facebook page and across key football blogs. We posted the films of Academy matches against professional teams on YouTube with links to the dedicated Facebook page. This approach helped us build up to more than 100,000 members with a genuine passion for football, rather than just idle tourists.

So far, our Academy films have been viewed a combined total of more than 3m times, with over 130,000 views of our latest film in just 1 week. In the last year, we’ve increased the rate of new fans joining our community by 260% with the total number at over 100,000 members and counting. That’s more members than a host of Premier League teams have managed. In addition, we’ve already seen 10 Nike Academy players sign professional contracts.

We’ve had positive responses from our target audience and professionals at the top level of the game. “Everything has to be a building block to make you a stronger, better player, it’s about analysis all the time. From all that analysis comes a training program, that’s how the Nike Academy is dedicated to helping you boys get better” - Stuart Pearce, England U21 Manager.