Kobe Bryant has transitioned to his life after the NBA nicely. Earlier this year, Bryant won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short, as his acclaimed short film Dear Basketball helped him take home the accolade. Bryant wrote the short, and apparently, it’s inspired him to do some more writing in his spare time.
Bryant is one of the largest shareholders in BODYARMOR and is using his influence within the company to play a major role in its latest ad campaign. The eventual Basketball Hall of Fame inductee wrote and co-directed a series of four ads for the company, and as you can guess, they’re incredibly entertaining and also a bit weird.
The premise of the commercials is that BODYARMOR is the latest in an evolution in sports drinks. The one that really sticks out involves Kristaps Porzingis. It involves a carrier pigeon that Porzingis tries to send to his parents in Latvia on his road back from injury.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muK7lb_w1H4
I never thought I would type this sentence when I was in college, but here’s a GIF of Porzingis trying to throw a carrier pigeon and failing.
As for commercials that involve birds, this one features James Harden dressed like he works at a Medieval Times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-R3QdTGeLg
Another highlights Skylar Diggins-Smith leading an 80s-style jazzercise class…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQY0vgvUB8U
…while the final one has Mike Trout using a fat melting jiggle machine, which I think is the proper term for these things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gbw6xe1wu
All four ads are certainly unique, and get BODYARMOR’s point across in a rather absurd way. The Harden and Porzingis spots will be the first one to hit the airwaves, as they’ll air on Wednesday night during TNT’s broadcast of the NBA playoffs.
