Nike × Gatorade

For the Jordan 1 × Gatorade launch, I merged Nike's product image of the Jordan 1 with a vintage Gatorade ad in Photoshop to create the final piece.

One launch ad, built as a straight swap. The source Gatorade ad shows a bottle breaking the tape at a stadium finish line with the line "Gatorade Always Wins!" I took Nike's product shot of the electric blue Jordan 1 and put the shoe where the bottle was, so it's the one crossing the line.

Both originals are shown on this page next to the final, so you can see exactly what came from where.

The collab already told the story: a sneaker built around a sports drink. So the ad didn't need a new concept. It needed the shoe to look like it was always in that picture.

That's a compositing job. The shoe had to be cut cleanly from a white studio background, sized and angled to fill the space the bottle took up, and matched to the scene: the stadium lighting, the warm sky, the finish tape across the front, the splashing water and the other bottles flying in. I kept the Gatorade logo in the corner and the track and crowd untouched, so anyone who grew up on those ads gets the reference at a glance.

The blue of the shoe does a lot of the work. It's the same blue as the drink in the original, so the swap reads as intentional, not pasted in.

Retouching and photo compositing for a product launch. This kind of quick-turn ad is a big part of my content and social work: take what the brand gives you, find the angle and make it look finished.