These trainers have been re-released and I got them in a flash.
To you they look like a pair of 90s tennis shoes with too much pink.
To me, they are being 15 and rebelling against the ridiculous rules, complacency and 'does your face fit' mentality if British tennis clubs in the 1990s.
This is my favourite ad ever. Not because it's good or bad. It simply spoke to me at a critical point in my life.
(out of interest, this is what gets missed when we debate the commercial sense in targeting young people. If you can become part of them working out who they are, you have a chance of staying with them for life. Unless you can find moments of transition and change - I venture Porsche should relentlessly target men and women who have the year 9 in their birthday - we re-evaluate EVERYTHING at the start of each new decade. I'd love someone like Porsche to target the partner of a car enthusiast and tell them a sports car is better than an affair!)
Nike didn't just build amazing ads and stuff back in the day, they built layers and layers of meaning, getting to the real of truth of sport for most people.
In tennis, globally, the establishment ruled and players like Agassi and McEnroe were anything but that - and teenagers like me bloody loved it.
Now Nike has moved on to build new meaning by tapping into the new young belief in equality -another cultural flashpoint in the deep truth that sport is the ultimate leveller.
Most sport is really pretending to something your not - or letting a part of you out that is usually buried come out.
When I was a pretty good swimmer, racing all over the world, I may have been a clumsy, shy awkward teenager, but in the pool, I could feel my strength and power and the sheer joy of doing something most people couldn't do. I gave me confidence that began to carry over into my real life.
When I played tennis, I competed in local matches, but it was all fantasy, I lived for the few moments I could make a running passing shot and feel like Agassi - and the feeling of being a rebel in a world of constriction. I didn't matter if I lost matches, I lived for few moments when the fantasy became real.
When I cycle now, I ride very, very fast and put myself through all sorts if pain, because I want the feeling I used to get from swimming. To escape and feel something in a jaded world - it still brings confidence in the real world for a person who is still shy and doesn't really know what he's doing.
Of course there is tension in this, I feel something far more profound when I allow myself to forget the world and spend time with my children - but most parents won't admit that being able to love your kids to the fullest, means being able to express other parts of who you are too.
Nike got stuff like this in the 80s and 90s, while Adidas just made ads.
In other words, they found their very human voice and found a way to move people.
This is what gets lost in How Brands Grow. It's fair to say that most people can't describe the brands they buy - but I can't describe why I love Joni Mitchell, and I hate Queen. Not really. It's how they make me feel, and we remember how we feel a lot longer that what we are told.
Nike's work cut deep. Adidas doesn't feel right. Never will.
Because emotion and body language evolved millions of years earlier than speech - and always wins.
That's why culture always beats marketing. Culture is life. Marketing is commerce.
I'm saying that Nike simply managed to be more human and got the HUMAN truth of the role of sport in our lives.
It's that easy and that hard.
Great post albeit too pink.
Posted by: John | July 10, 2019 at 05:45 PM