This is the kind of engagement that tests whether your tools and your thinking actually work under pressure. Thirty-six hours from crisis to relaunch isn’t a timeline that allows for committee decisions or extended creative reviews. It requires someone who can see the technical possibilities, make the creative calls, and execute - all at the same time.
The AI and CGI work here wasn’t experimental. It was operational. The ability to take existing footage and fundamentally reframe what it communicates - without the cost and timeline of a reshoot - is exactly what compression economics looks like in practice. You’re collapsing what would traditionally be a six-week crisis response into a day and a half.
What made this work commercially was the expansion. Most crisis management is purely defensive - contain the damage, minimise the loss. Here, the AI-enabled speed of the pivot meant we had time and budget left over to go further than the original launch plan. The crisis ended up being the catalyst for a bigger, more diverse campaign than JD Sports and Nike had originally commissioned.
