Crossbar ("Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold")
Nike2005
Crossbar, better known as “Ronaldinho Crossbar”, is a 2005 viral online film for Nike, created by Framfab Denmark, Copenhagen.
Why it works
Ronaldinho laces up a pair of white-and-gold Nike Tiempo boots, juggles a ball towards the box and strikes the crossbar four times in a row without it touching the ground. Framfab's Copenhagen team modelled the clip on the homemade videos people were swapping by email, a plain, unpolished product test rather than a commercial, and released it online in autumn 2005. Email chains carried it first; then YouTube, a site only months old, made it the first video on the site to be watched a million times. It is studied as the prototype of the branded viral: found-footage style, a star doing something just about believable, and one argument, was it real?, that made people watch and forward it. Nike's then European communications head later told Danish press that digital fixes and a man behind the goal had helped, but by then the debate had done its job. At Cannes in 2006 it won a Gold Cyber Lion for viral marketing and a Silver Film Lion.
Techniques
- Demonstration Styled as a homemade product test, the clip shows the player lace up new boots and strike the crossbar four times without the ball touching the ground.
- Testimonial and endorsement A star doing something just about believable ties the boots to his skill, and the argument over whether it was real keeps people forwarding it.
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