The ad contrasts reality with fantasy and poses questions between realising dreams and enacting ambition, where Nike gets us to question what small choices make up the bigger picture.

Nike approached us to supply the accompanying music to this inspiring ad and we didn’t hesitate in accepting the role to drum the message home musically for them.

Together with our friends at Wieden + Kennedy and through our Tokyo office, we worked on a music composition for a very special Nike campaign aimed at empowering Korean women to choose for themselves and feel phenomenal.

Nike wanted to show Korean girls and women that they can unlock their potential and feel phenomenal through engaging with sports.

The ‘Choose Phenomenal’ campaign was about choosing between options and challenging consumers to confront adversity; to feel empowered by their choices.

Knowing that life presents us with a hell of a lot of choice and that each of us experience life in different ways, it can be hard to know which path to choose or which decision to make without feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated or pressurised into one way of thinking.

We knew we had to create something simplistically empowering that would serve to simplify the process around decision-making and propel women to act with confidence.

Through speaking with director Roger Guardia in the initial stages, we learnt that he was keen to split the screen in two to emphasise the concept of choosing between different options and provide two alternatives for viewers to focus on. It would then drive the point of how paralysing decision-making can be. But they wanted to reverse the paralysis on its head and instead channel inspiration.

In the process of creating the track, we purposefully accelerated its intensity to a gradual build, mimicking a racing heartbeat during a workout session.

The result is an accompanying composition that was upbeat in nature to fit with the athletic movements of the sportswomen seen on-screen – depicted in either basketball, kickboxing or dancing.

The suggested sounds of sporting movements provide context to the visuals, while the backdrop – filled with filtered guitar and strings – give the sensation that the soundtrack is personal, hopefully leading viewers to believe that the strength to decide comes from within.

As our Creative Director Rick Sakurai says: “The whole tone needed to be organic in order to make it really personal. That’s how the music meeting started. The tempo, tone and melody all have a human element to it. The pacing is the most important part of this project because we needed a track that feels like it’s coming out of a human body.”