Who says new cats don’t pay homage to their predecessors? The newest Converse marketing campaign dispells that belief. The higher ups at the brand have recruited the award winning filmmaker Antoine Fuqua to direct the commercials from ”The Procession” campaign. The brand has always been about progressive culture in general, but for this go round they’ve enlisted: Julius “Dr. J” Erving; Carlos Arroyo of the Miami Heat; hip hop stars Jim Jones and Doug E Fresh; legendary ball-handler god Shammgod and Harlem streetball player Adrian “A-Butta” Walton; Converse skaters Kenny Anderson, Sammy Baca, Rune Glifberg and Eli Reed.

The point of the campaign is to highlight the “old school” players passing the baton on to these newcomers. According to the Converse CMO Geoff Cottrill, ”The new Converse campaign is the perfect summary of who we are as a brand. It’s a celebration of people from different cultures who are passionate about what they do, coming together to create a movement. Converse is a brand that can authentically blend culture in a way that makes perfect sense for how people view and connect to sport, music and culture today – without lines or barriers.”

Fuqua, the mastermind behind cinematic goodies such as Training Day and more recently Brooklyn’s Finest, has done his duty in bringing the attitude of street culture to the small screen. He was noted as saying: “[Basketball]…it’s like a ritual. The basketball being the thing that brings everybody [together]. The rhythm and the beat. Converse is taking it to the streets. The streets are the heart beat.” –N. Graham

Tags: basketball, Harlem, hip-hop, Sneakers

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 7:27 pm by The Notorious BJP and is filed under Clothes, Gear, Shoes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.