Bump. Set. (Numbers) Spike.

“Girls volleyball has never been so popular in the United States. Participation has increased every year since at least 1980 (excluding the 2020-21 pandemic year), and growth has accelerated the past decade.”

AP News

Amid a surge in popularity, Mission was tapped to shoot Nike’s all-star volleyball lineup to help them get in on all the action. But to stand out in an already noisy footwear market, we needed a good hook. One that was smart, one that was elegant, and one that was firmly rooted (quite literally) in the actual experience of the athlete.

Get in on the Ground Floor

Ask any onlooker and they’ll say volleyball happens in the air. Serves, sets, brick-wall blocks, and even those heart-stopping pancakes are all about one thing—keeping the ball off the ground. But as any player knows, that’s exactly where greatness is gained—on the ground.

While your eye is on the ball, there are a million micro-moments of footwork setting everything up there into motion. Split-steps. Shuffles. Pivots so subtle they look like muscle twitches until you realize they’re all careful choreography.

Footwork and—for our purposes here, footwear—are the real MVPs of a successful volleyball game. Without that solid foundation, all those gravity-defying moves would just fall flat (or, even worse, on their face.)

A Little History, a Little Science & a Little More Sole

Although first hitting the scene back in the 1930’s, volleyball-specific footwear has only really started to gain traction in the past five years or so. More often than not, players opted for basketball shoes because they were readily available, not as cost prohibitive, and frankly, close enough.

But as you advance in the game, the more advanced your footwear should become. Contrary to popular belief, volleyball players jump a lot more than basketball players, so the sole needs to be engineered specifically to accommodate both the launch and the landing over and over (and over) again. That means more forefoot flexibility, extra cushiony injected midsoles, tougher toe boxes, and grippy but nimble outsoles. Oh, and they have to be insanely light.

Not Just Comfort; A Competitive Edge.

This is where Nike swooshes in. No stranger to problem-solving for athletes, Nike’s designers went to work to deliver a whole suite of position-specific volleyball shoes that address all the players’ needs and then some. Tried, tested, and tooled to tackle the top pain points of athletes who have been wearing something else out of necessity instead of intent.

All of this is great, but with a humble catalog of over, oh…3,000 footwear SKUs, how does Nike even get credit for the skin they’ve put in the game? They team up with us. At Mission, we know a thing or two about connecting with athletes. From pros like STX and Louisville Slugger to collegiate teams like George Mason and Towson University, and even sports medicine leaders like PSM, we have spent countless hours studying, dissecting, and understanding the mindsets of athletes everywhere. Landing on simple tenets for dynamic results:

1. Authenticity is Everything
   From sweat to mechanics to ugly-beautiful game faces, authenticity is always found through the work. Really putting the athlete, and the product, through the gauntlet shows they’re at the top of their game and the product is the key to keeping them there.
   
2. Emotion over Aesthetics
   While creating a distinct look and feel is 101 to capital M Marketing, that’s all wasted work the moment it feels cold or contrived. The camera really needs to connect with the athlete to make them feel at home to capture that passion, grit, and grace, and find the right angles of the product to make a 2D image feel as rich as the 3D object. 
   
3. Product/Person Connection
   There’s a difference between an athlete shoot and a product shoot, and a fine line to walk when the client wants both. You need to make sure neither one looks like a prop. You capture the personality and power of the athlete in symphony with the build and the beauty of the product.

Shoot for the Stars

Wow, that was a lot of lead-up for a blog about a footwear photoshoot. It was and it was intentional. That’s how much work goes into something seemingly so simple. To be a great marketer and to do great marketing, you need to understand the market and how the brand and the product can play in it. For Nike, we take their cool, confident, and a little rebellious vibe, along with a really solid brand playbook, and push it ever-so-slightly to meet this audience where it is. And that is, historically, underrepresented.

The work done by Mission elevates these athletes in a way we’ve never done before. This level of creative helps us to really dig in and go deep on our commitment to volleyball and its players. Not only through world-class product, but getting out there on the court with them, doing grass roots activations, and highlighting the hard work and dedication they’ve put in to get to this level. 

Ryan Johnson, Director of Partnerships at APS (Nike Global Licensee)

Team USA training camp was just a week or so away when we got word, so it was a mad dash to absorb the brief, prep the team, bulletproof the concept, submit it for approval, carve out our shoot schedule, and pack our bags. We jumped on a plane to L.A. to meet nine of the nation’s best female volleyball players—including 3x National Champion Morgan Hertz, NCAA champion Madi Skinner,  and 2025 AU Pro Brittany Abercrombie—and put Nike’s volleyball line to the test. 

They bumped, they set, they spiked a few entirely too close to our heads—but the result was a shoot filled with energy, optimism, and the undeniable magic that only comes out when people get to do what they love (on both sides of the camera).

We knew we only had a short block of time with the athletes, since they had a strict training schedule, so we worked smart to maximize what we captured. We collected our core content, of course, following a detailed shot list, but made sure to also have cameras rolling through the found moments for a deep bench of all-star b-roll. So not only did we bank a rich set of polished brand content, we also packed our pockets with social and takedown assets.

Since this was a paid and organic campaign we wanted to keep the story unfolding in a way that brought the viewer on the same exciting ride as the athletes. We punched both still and video content across the socials, as well as OTT and YT preroll to hit potential consumers and customers everywhere they work and play. 

The result was a floor-slapping good time for a great athletic community. Any time we can use our brains to shape an idea and our guts to believe we can pull it off—and then actually do—it warms our little hearts and gets us excited to do it for everyone out there.