Who is the Athlete? - Anlene | Clapboard Ad Archive
Anlene’s 2018 campaign Who is the Athlete, created by FCB Jakarta for the Indonesian market, exemplifies how healthcare brands can astutely leverage cultural moments in sport without falling into the trap of ambush marketing’s visual clichés. Facing the challenge of the Asian Games’ high-voltage national fervor while prohibited from using any official games imagery or assets, Anlene pivoted toward a deeper human insight: everyday Indonesians, particularly homemakers, stretch their physical and emotional limits with a tenacity that parallels professional athletes. The central creative idea — there is an athlete in everyone — became the campaign’s rallying cry, executed through a digital-first, multi-platform narrative that sits squarely in Clapboard’s FORMAT#10—Associated User Imagery. The campaign launched with a deliberately provocative social media poll that questioned who truly personifies the athlete, baiting a groundswell of audience engagement and priming the conversation around agency in ordinary lives. This was swiftly developed into a television and digital video execution that visually juxtaposed Indonesia’s Olympic badminton champion with an everyday housewife, asserting—without didacticism—that the grit, routine, and sacrifice underpinning both roles share a powerful commonality. Criticism from homemakers unwilling to accept this comparison was directly addressed through a live Facebook broadcast, where roles were reversed: homemakers and the national athlete switched domains, publicly grappling with the realities and physical demands of each other’s daily challenges. This moment became both a social equalizer and a media spectacle, reinforcing Anlene’s positioning as the nutritional brand championing all forms of active, resilient living. To maintain campaign momentum, the team turned to influencer content, commissioning acclaimed sports photographer Peksi Cahyo to capture striking portraits of ordinary Indonesians who embodied an athletic spirit outside of traditional stadiums. These evocative images anchored a public exhibition timed with Indonesia’s National Sports Day, solidifying the message that the line between athletic achievement and daily perseverance is not only blurry but fundamentally rhetorical. Consistently, the work avoided product-centric messaging, instead letting the audience project themselves into the aspirational frame, in keeping with FORMAT#10’s focus on relatable or aspirational user profiles over literal product demonstration. The campaign earns 67/100 in Clapboard's global creative archive. In a market saturated with transactional sports tie-ins, Anlene’s campaign illustrates that reframing national sporting moments through the lens of everyday heroism not only sidesteps sponsorship restrictions but also forges deeper, more inclusive brand equity.
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