Nike Television Advertisements, as an Ordinary Girl

¶ … Nike television advertisements, as an ordinary girl is transformed into an Olympic runner. Bombarding the airwaves during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the "You're faster than you think" campaign is an example of Nike's ability to produce engaging, effective television commercials. While the ultimate success of these advertising campaigns can only be seen in the quarterly reports of the corporations, from a design and marketing standpoint, the Nike ad is eminently successful. The "You're faster than you think" campaign promotes brand awareness and creates a brand imprint in the consumer brain, but the commercials are also artistic, clever, and entertaining. However, Nike is a large Fortune-500 company with a substantial marketing and advertising budget. Smaller companies such as those listed in Inc. magazine work with a smaller budget and therefore generally produce less dramatic television commercial spots. Moreover, smaller companies cannot afford the prime time Olympics spots like Nike can. Even so, a host of smaller companies do produce effective, engaging advertisements that target a specific consumer group and leave definite brand imprints. One example is a microbrewery based out of San Marcos, California. Listed in the Inc. 500 list, Stone Brewing delivers an effective, artistically brilliant and humorous advertising campaign that manages to bypass television or radio. Instead, Stone Brewing focuses its attention on trade magazines and specialty publications and relies more on clever marketing than on slick ads. The Internet has impacted the business world as well as the world of advertising. Working with the new media has posed challenges for advertisers used to traditional media. However, Internet-based companies should have a handle on creating ad campaigns suited for their target audiences. Internet-only companies like Amazon.com have created remarkably successful advertising campaigns without the use of television. No one who surfs the Web can escape the all-pervasive Amazon.com ads; their ubiquitous presence in cyberspace is what makes Amazon ads good, not their aesthetics. The examples of these three companies can shed light on how large, small, and Internet-based companies can execute effective advertising campaigns.

Setting aside the questionable ethical practices of multinational athletic apparel giant Nike, the company's ads are just short of genius. The "swoosh" logo is instantly recognizable all over the world, even in those countries that Nike gladly exploits for cheap labor. In fact, Nike's avoidance of directly addressing the human rights of "sweat shop" labor in their commercials is one of the reasons why their advertisements are so successful. In their television and print ads, Nike focuses on two main things: product and theme. Nike shoes are shown up-close in their print ads, which pepper the pages of mainstream fashion and sports magazines like Glamour and Sports Illustrated. Nike is a name almost synonymous with quality running shoes, thanks to their advertisements. Moreover, Nike is now turning increasingly more to the fashion-conscious consumer sector by taking out ads in fashion magazines as well as by marketing athletic apparel to a an amateur athletic crowd.

Nike's print ads mainly feature close-up photos of their products, which serve to draw the reader's attention to the actual product. Because Nike's shoes are aesthetically pleasing and because the photography is superb, the ads are visually appealing. Moreover, the Nike print ads are simple and uncluttered. They do not contain much text or information about the company. Rather, they feature the product in context. Theme is also integral to the relative success of the Nike print ad campaigns. Most, if not all, Nike print ads display the shoes or clothing on athletes or on models who appear to be exceptionally fit. Similarly, the Nike television ads depict athletes, many of whom are celebrity athletes. When people in motion don Nike products, those products seem that much more appealing to the amateur or non-athletic consumer. The Nike television ads are also strong because of their creativity and cleverness: the recent "You're faster than you think" series bridge the gap between professional and amateur athlete by sending the message that there is an athlete within everyone. Furthermore, the ads come replete with driving music and an overall slick feel.

In contrast to Nike, Stone Brewing caters to a niche market and is far from being a multinational corporation. However, Stone did make the Inc. 500 list and is therefore an example of a successful business. Stone Brewing does not promote their products on television; the consumer base for their products is limited and the company's budget probably would not permit it. Instead, the microbrewery targets its consumers and potential buyers through trade magazines and publications that might support their target demographic. Like many small companies, Stone brewing also relies on press releases and strategically-placed articles to promote their products.

The design and artistry of the Stone advertisements make their advertising campaign appealing and effective. Central to Stone ads are the logs they use on their beer bottles. Most if not all of the Stone Brewing print ads display their beer bottle logos, which are quirky designs depicting demons and gargoyles. These Stone logos are not boring text-based beer labels but rather artistic in nature. They also appeal to a youthful demographic. While the graphic design of Stone Brewing print ads is exceptional and unique and develops a strong brand imprint, the campaign is lacking in its scope. Undoubtedly this is due to a limited advertising budget as well as to the nature of the microbrewery parameters, which by definition cannot produce over a certain amount of beer.

The advertising campaign of Internet-based book, music, and video vendor Amazon.com is like Nike's in its broad, ambitious scope but lacks all the artistry of either Nike or Stone Brewing. Amazon.com places small ads on any number of websites, enticing Web surfers to view items related to whatever it is they are searching for on the Internet. Amazon.com also advertises via a method unique to Internet-based companies: by offering per-click incentives for other websites to host their ads. Such "associate" ads help to generate revenues for the company without Amazon.com outlaying any extra money.