For Dwyane and Zaire Wade, Thorne’s Global Campaign Debut Is a Family Affair 

Luxury health and wellness brand, Thorne, has teamed up with basketball legend, philanthropist and entrepreneur, Dwyane Wade, and his up-and-coming baller son, Zaire, for a campaign and partnership each of them hopes is “built to last.” 

Produced by BUCK, the campaign, titled “Build to Last,” comprises two 30-second hero spots; one featuring the retired, 3-time NBA champion and 2023 Hall-of-Fame inductee giving the audience a glimpse of his maintenance routine, and the other featuring the younger Wade, a rising star in the Basketball Africa League for the Cape Town Tigers, practicing his moves on the court.

It’s one of my favorite partnerships now because my son and I are doing it together.

Dwyane Wade, former NBA star

Both Wades are juxtaposed onscreen alongside teams of scientists developing the most advanced products to suit the needs of their generationally different bodies. Three additional 15-second clips, one of which features the duo together, will be released online with the hero videos, which will also run across CTV and all Google channels. 

The 13-week global campaign, which launched Tuesday, will roll out in twelve key markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Beijing, Shanghai and Canada, with out-of-home (billboards, subway panels, urban panels, spectaculars) running exclusively in Beijing and Shanghai. Paid search, activations, and influencer and brand ambassador creative engagement will round out the remaining elements.

The brand will also offer limited-edition “Build to Last” product boxes based on Dwyane and Zaire’s personal “product line-up.”   

Wade(s) in uncharted territory 

For Dwyane and Zaire—who, along with Dwyane’s wife, Gabrielle Union, had already been using Thorne products for years before receiving the call to partner with them—the opportunity to collaborate on a campaign as a family was an added benefit. 

“Well, obviously, it’s one of my favorite partnerships now because my son and I are doing it together,” Dwyane told Adweek. “How cool is that?”  

The elder Wade, who’s spent the larger part of his two-decade-long career navigating brand sponsorships prior to becoming a full-time entrepreneur, told Adweek that unlike other sponsorships “where you try to make it fit,” the partnership with Thorne was an organic one that “just flows.” 

“My family and I had been using Thorne for the past few years already, and now I have an opportunity because of our partnership to get a little bit more information on what the products are and how I can use [them] to best benefit me.”

For Dwyane, those benefits include having products that build his mind as well as his body, which after two decades in the league has seen its share of wear and tear. (He joked about the relief of no longer having to “push 7-footers off of him.”) 

“It’s all about aging, right? It’s all about being healthy as you age. I’m in my 40s now. Things are a lot different. Things are looking different. They’re feeling different. And it’s all about healthy aging. [Beauty] is one of the top categories in the world because everybody [wants to] age beautifully. Well, what about the inside? I tell people, ‘You could have a beautiful car, but if the engine ain’t working…you ain’t going nowhere!’ I [want to] go places!” 

He is also using the partnership to educate his own father and other Black men on taking necessary steps to improve their health before it’s too late. 

“My dad and I talk about this all the time…as Black men in our communities, we do not discuss health. We do not discuss anything that’s going on with us. We just find out that something happened. And I don’t [want to] do that. And I don’t [want to] do that to my family. And we live in a world right now where we don’t have to. And so, I’m thankful for companies like Thorne. I’m thankful that this is a company for me and my family where we feel that we can find our information to be able to make sure that I’m around. That Zaire’s around. And my wife is around. And so, that’s what’s important.” 

For Zaire, who used to watch his father on various commercial sets in his youth, being on one where he was also the star hit differently. 

“That day was great because I just got to be myself,” he told Adweek. “[Thorne] allows you to be yourself. I think that our family’s obviously big on that. Just being ourselves. And not caring about what anybody else has to say. Just enjoying that day with the Thorne family and my dad while we were on the court [and] on stands doing our different shoots. Just all over…it was great.”  

The product-savvy progeny—who swears by his Amino Complex and cites the brand’s ingredient transparency and NSF-Certified supplements as a professional athlete subject to stringent testing—also shared with Adweek how the campaign’s tagline resonates as Zaire creates his own path as a young athlete, and as his own personal brand, both of which he agreed requires a disciplined mindset. 

“I think what excites me is the name of the campaign, ‘Build to last.’ It’s obviously a longevity campaign. I know I’m in this for the long run with my career. I know they’re in it for the long run with their company. I feel like that’s where [our] mutual understanding came from.” 

Says Dwyane, “Our campaign is built off of us. And so, when we say, ‘build to last,’ like…this is built to last.” 

A Thorne blooming with new possibilities 

For Thorne, the campaign with the Wades—their first-ever global one—marks a turning point in a company that began almost 40 years ago as a manufacturer that sold directly to doctors. 

Founded in 1984, the brand was acquired by its current leadership in 2010 and branched out into conventional medicine, collaborating with The Mayo Clinic and the United State Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOC), and establishing strong clinical credibility amongst its clientele prior to launching direct-to-consumer in 2018. 

We’re so aligned, which is what we’re kind of trying to weave into the brand campaign.

Michelle Crow, Thorne CMO

“Within the last few years, we invested in one national brand awareness campaign each year to really get the message about Thorne out,” Michelle Crow, Thorne’s CMO, told Adweek. “Why we’re different. Who we are. And then, this year, we wanted to do something different. We’re really trying to build a trusted, luxury, consumer health brand.” 

Crow told Adweek Thorne historically leaned into animation in previous brand marketing, citing a reluctance to “dive into live action” to maintain a luxury aesthetic. But the brand could not pass up an opportunity to work with the Wades, who they’d learned were already devoted clients. 

“They’ve been fantastic partners,” says Crow. “They’ve been really fun and honest, and I think the thing that has been most exciting is their genuine interest in learning more about where they’re at and what they should be doing whether it’s [a] different diet, exercise or supplementation or testing. It’s been kind of a very open, collaborative approach to working together, which has been great.”  

She continued, “Philosophically, we’re so aligned, which is what we’re kind of trying to weave into the brand campaign from a messaging and creative standpoint. So, kind of really paralleling the grit, patience, determination, relentless pursuit of excellence across the Wades as well as those are kind of the key values of Thorne and who we are and our legacy.”   

Crow told Adweek the brand was excited to feature both Dwyane and Zaire, who she notes are in “such different phases of their life,” because it gave them an opportunity to show consumers the breadth of their product offerings and how there’s “something for everyone at every age and life stage.”  

“Once you’re in our ecosystem, you really stay with us for a long time because we could be your partner for life,” she said. 

Still, with a network of over 47,000 health professionals and 6 million consumers and a direct sales pipeline to over 100 professional locker rooms across sports leagues in the United States, the brand sees an opportunity to become an even more formidable player in the health and wellness space soon. 

“Thorne’s biggest opportunity as a brand is to build awareness,” says Crow. “Internally, we say that Thorne is the best-kept secret in the health and wellness industry. So, we’re really on a mission to try to change that and kind of turn Thorne into a household name.”