Taking the trend of hands-on athlete marketing to new heights, a mixed-media ad and strategy house has worked directly with Kobe Bryant to develop a multi-spot campaign for the launch of Bryant’s new signature Nike shoe, the Zoom Kobe III.Zambezi Ink, of Venice, CA created, directed and produced the five-spot Genius campaign. One spot per week is premiering exclusively at Bryant’s official site, http://www.kb24.com/, followed by a broader on and offline rollout.

In close collaboration with Bryant, Zambezi Ink’s Creative Directors Brian Ford and Ian Noe developed the Genius concept. Dressed as Leonardo Da Vinci, Amadeus Mozart, George Washington Carver and Albert Einstein, Bryant proves that these sneakers are genius, with some help from a precocious youngster.

“We wanted a way to talk directly about the shoe while showing Kobe as you have never seen him,” said Ford, creative director and co-founder. “So he embodies geniuses of the past to reflect the genius of the Zoom Kobe III. Plus, seeing Einstein and the rest of them totally ball out is funny to me.”

The Genius campaign isn’t the first collaboration between Bryant and Zambezi Ink. The agency created and maintains http://www.kb24.com/, which launched in October 2006. It averages 40,000 unique visits a day, and has received 10.8 million unique visitors since its launch. The site is a robust and intuitively-designed athlete site where visitors can see daily content updates, fresh video content, read Bryant’s blog, chat with each other, shop the store, sign up for Bryant’s camps, and more.

The Nike Zoom Kobe III is currently available for sale on http://www.kb24.com/. Two new color ways will be released late March and early May.