Most sneaker ads pretend nobody wrote them. Corteiz and Nike built one out of the writing process. The Corteiz Nike How to Make an Advert commercial, a 2:18 film for the Nike Shox R419 posted on Corteiz’s YouTube channel on October 20, 2026, is narrated by two young creatives arguing their way through every cliche in the sneaker playbook – logo first, make it look expensive, get someone famous, add a lizard – while the film obligingly builds each idea on screen. It is a meta joke about advertising that is also a thorough product film.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
We open on black. “We open on the logo,” says one voice, and the Corteiz Alcatraz mark and the Nike swoosh appear. “Nah, that’s dead product. We need to grab their attention first,” says the other. The camera then obeys each note – “Both logos.” “Then we make it look expensive.” “Colder.” – with macros of the silver, ribbed Shox R419 upper before the shoe floats alone in a mirrored steel room with a cobalt-blue floor.
“But these are leng though,” so someone should wear them – “not a model,” someone people know, “but not bait.” A young man cycles through outfits from the collection (“Bro, not all on him”), then the narrators ask for “different people” and the room fills with a lineup of all ages in Corteiz x Nike gear, a dog at their feet. “What about a lizard?” Then: would these people even wear Corteiz? Cut to a crowd around a car on a dark street at night – “Now this makes sense.”
From there the brief collapses on purpose. “These creps are generational. Hear me out: a baby shower.” We get a backyard party with a balloon arch, an astronaut on a rust-red planet set, a trio in a white studio for “we need rappers,” then “we’ve got to show football – this is a Nike ad,” and a young footballer juggling in a night cage pitch. “How much time have you got left?” “Eight seconds.” The last stretch is a pile-up: a lizard sitting on a blue Shox among party snacks, a bodybuilder flexing in a Corteiz vest, the astronaut again. Finally the two narrators sit across a desk from Maya Jama. “So, what do you think?” Her verdict: “You don’t have to do all that. They just want to see the creps.” A last squabble about whose logo goes on screen, and the two logos close it out.
CREDITS
Brands: Corteiz and Nike (Shox R419 footwear and apparel). Film: “How to Make an Advert,” 2:18, on the CORTEIZ YouTube channel (UCSql7EQm5L3lC9qTojARtiQ), uploaded October 20, 2026. Director: UNCANNY (who also edited, per LBB). Agency: Out of Office (OOO) with Actually Creative. Production: magna studios UK (LBB), listed by Out of Office and the YouTube description as Actually Creative + Magna. Out of Office also credits creative director Lewis Levi, copywriters Alex Rest and Lewis Levi, executive producers Amna Khan and Joel Spencer, producer Sid Arthur, production designer Sasha Hilton and stylist Javel Berlin. Music: Dizzee Rascal, “I Luv You” (LBB). Talent named by Out of Office includes Maya Jama, Kobbie Mainoo, Slawn, Gabriel Moses and others. Sources: LBB (news story and work page, Oct 23, 2026), Out of Office, YouTube description. Not cited in those sources: DP, colorist, VFX or post house, and the names of the two narrators.
THE EXECUTION
The smartest decision is that the voiceover drives the edit. Every time the narrators change their minds, the film follows – wardrobe swaps mid-shot, the empty steel room suddenly crowded, the set ripped out and replaced by a night street. UNCANNY told LBB they cut much of it to a 140bpm grid, and you can feel it: the Dizzee Rascal track punctuates the kids’ ideas like a sarcastic third voice, and the gaps between beats make the payoffs land harder.
Crucially, the self-mockery never costs the product its screen time. The opening minute is an unapologetic hero sequence – cold light, chrome, macro texture – and the shoe keeps reappearing in the chaos, including under that lizard. The joke is how sneaker ads get made; the trick is that the film makes a good one anyway.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: the premise is honest about the genre in a way few brands dare. Cameos, “relatable” casting, random surrealism and the obligatory football bit are real habits of the category, and naming them out loud buys Corteiz credibility with an audience that already rolls its eyes at them. Maya Jama’s deadpan closer is the right-sized punchline, and the mirrored box with its blue floor gives a scattershot structure one visual home.
What doesn’t: at 2:18 the deliberate fall-apart section runs long, and the montage of “intentionally bad” ideas starts to feel like the very excess it is mocking. Much of the cast will only register for people already inside UK streetwear culture; outside it, many cameos read as anonymous faces in good jackets.
VERDICT
“How to Make an Advert” is a confident, funny piece of brand self-awareness that sells the Shox R419 harder than its own jokes admit. It is overlong and insider in places, but the idea – let the brief build the ad in real time, then have Maya Jama tell everyone to just show the creps – is sharp and memorable. Rating: 4 out of 5.
