Secret Tournament

"The Secret Tournament" (also known as "Scorpion KO" or "The Cage") was a Nike global advertising campaign coinciding with the 2002 FIFA World Cup. With a marketing budget estimated at US$100 million, the advert featured 24 top contemporary football players and Eric Cantona as the tournament "referee". It was directed by film director and former Monty Python actor and animator Terry Gilliam.

The campaign started in March 2002 with the tease phase of the campaign, featuring only a shot of soccer shoes and a scorpion. The early ads led viewers to a website where they could learn more about the Secret Tournament and play interactive games.

April saw the start of the Excite phase, with the teams facing off against each other, then moved into the Involve phase (see Impact).

The concept of the advertising campaign was a fictional tournament involving eight teams of three of football's top players in a first-goal-wins elimination. The matches were staged in an enclosed pitch located on a ship with former footballer Eric Cantona acting in the role of referee.

Besides the TV advertising campaign, the marketing strategy involved the execution of local tournaments in several major capital cities of the world, being held in schools, sport venues and stadiums. The concept was the same: teams of three players had to be registered and one-goal matches were played in successive knock-out rounds up to the final matches in cages like the ones in the TV ads.

During these events, interactive CD-ROMs in silver-colored envelopes were handed out to the players, containing the video advertisements that were broadcast on TV. These were very well-valued by the owners, as all this happened in the years when internet was still not worldwide ubiquitous and the only way of watching the advertisements was waiting for them during TV broadcasts. Also, posters with pictures of all the 24 players were handed over, as well as orange bracelets with the campaign scorpion branding.

There are several different edits of the "Scorpion KO" commercials. There are four separate commercials for each match as well as an overall compilation of the matches and a condensed version of the compilation.

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