Nike: Risk Everything Ad Analysis

A Game of Chance: Nike Advertising

INTRODUCTION

          The company, Nike, got it's name from the Greek Goddess of victory, and what a victorious run this company has had (O'Reilly). Being one of the top selling company's in athletic gear, Nike is famously known for it's dry-fit shirts, shoes, sweat pants, and more. Nike has gained the support of millions of people, and that can all be thanked to Nike's advertisements. Using a variety of advertising appeals, Nike has been able to capture the uniqueness of their products, making people want to invest in them. One campaign that Nike has recently released, over the World Cup summer of 2014, is the "Risk Everything" campaign. The ads in this campaign, such as the commercials "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game", display many of Nike's soccer related athletic gear, as well as many of their world wide famous endorsers playing soccer. By releasing this campaign at this time, Nike was not only able to still get people to buy their products, but they were also able to spark excitement about the upcoming World Cup. Nike was able to tell it's audience through this campaign that in order to win risk must be taken. 

THE AUTHOR

          Officially, Nike started in 1971 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, after being a small store called Blue Ribbon Sports for 5 preceding years (O'Reilly). Since Nike is a rather new company, its advertising history is rather brief. Nike is known for its celebrity athlete endorsements, such as Michael Jordan, and their longest campaign "Just Do It". Interesting fact: the "Just Do It" idea was inspired by the words "let's do it" spoken by the serial killer, Gary Gilmore, right before he was executed by a firing squad (O'Reilly). As for the "Risk Everything" campaign, it's inspiration was not as morbid as the "Just Do It" campaign. Instead, Nike teamed up with the company Weiden and Kennedy to produce this campaign series. This company has created commercials for other big companies like Coca-Cola and Old Spice (Wieden and Kennedy). Both the "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game" commercials were created and produced by the Wieden and Kennedy Company, and they display the game of soccer. They have branches of their company in Portland, New York, Sao Paulo, London, Amsterdam, Delhi, Shanghai, and Tokyo (Wieden and Kennedy). What makes the "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game" commercials so unique is that they were made in Portland, Oregon. Since the commercials were made in the United States, it was the first time that a player, goalie Tim Howard, from the United States Men's National team was placed along side famous soccer players such as Neymar Jr, Wayne Rooney, and Christiano Ronaldo. This commercial was created to get people hyped about the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil, and having Tim Howard in the commercials excited the American audience even more. 

THE AUDIENCE

          Nike generally advertises to athletes of all races and gender, but specifically teen and young adult athletes, even though people of all ages buy their products. The commercials, "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game" did appeal to the American audience very well, especially soccer players. The commercials were created during the Summer of 2014, which was the summer of the World Cup. It was perfectly timed to have these commercials out right before the World Cup started, and shown on sports networks, to get people more excited about the event. In fact people were more excited about the World Cup this year than any other year before, because the United States broke the most views for a single soccer match in World Cup history for its country (ESPN Staff). With the commercials being World Cup related, Nike was able to show off its uniforms for certain teams and it's cleats. Of course the cleats appealed to soccer players specifically, but the jerseys appealed to both soccer players and people that root for a team in the World Cup. Some may argue that these commercials do not appeal to women as well as they do men, which is not the case. The commercials are in fact played by all male characters, but the timing of the commercials were created for the Men's World Cup. Nike has created commercials with just women characters displayed in them for the previous Women's World Cup. Also, it can be noted that the very attractive players like Christiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr, are enough to appeal to some women. Overall, Nike finds ways to appeal to everyone in it's targeted audience.

THE TEXT

          Both commercials, "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game", appear to appeal to the same audience, because the text for both are very similar. The two start off by using a plain folk advertising appeal, that is they display ordinary people using Nike products. "Winner Stays" begins with teenagers starting up a game of soccer, while "The Last Game" shows Brazilian natives juggling a Nike soccer ball around their town. Then the two jump into their celebrity spokesperson advertising appeal, both using the same celebrity, soccer athletes: Wayne Rooney, Neymar Jr., Christiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gerard Pique, Gonzalo Higuain, Mario Gotze, Eden Hazard, Thiago Silva, Andre Pirlo, David Luis, Andres Iniesta, Thibaut Courtois, and Tim Howard. All of these soccer players show off their skills in soccer matches in both commercials. The two commercials also show other famous athletes like in "Winner Stays" basketball superstar Kobe Bryant and UFC Champions Jon Jones and Anderson Silva are present, and in "The Last Game" basketball superstar Lebron James is present. To end the commercials, a picture of a skull surrounded by flames appears on the screen with the same "Risk Everything" saying, as shown below.

The Nike swish can be seen in the middle of the skulls forehead to draw attention to it since it is the center of the illustration. As for the soccer ball on the right, it shows that the "Risk Everything" campaign is specific for soccer, and the die on the left symbolizes a game of chance, which requires taking a risk. This picture has a deeper meaning to it just like the commercials do. The underlying message that the commercials are trying to prove is that in order to win, risk must be taken.

Click to Watch "Winner Stays"

          For the first commercial, "Winner Stays", the message in order to win, risk must be taken, is proven by both athletes and plain folk. The commercial starts off, as stated earlier, with normal teenage boys starting up a game of soccer in their home town. The catch is that these boys can channel a soccer star by calling out the soccer stars name. For instance, the first boy yells out that he wants to be "Christiano Ronaldo", so when he says that name he turns into that superstar. This can be seen throughout the whole video, boys turning into soccer stars, even when the scene moves from the boys hometown field into a huge soccer stadium. In one part of the video, Neymar Jr is shown dribbling the ball, at speed, to goal when a defender steps in, so he stops the ball, turns around, and passes the ball off. It can then be heard from one of the boys that "Neymar would never do that", which is true because if one defender came at Neymar in real life he would take that defender on one versus one. The point made here in the commercial though is that Neymar stepped out of his box, and did something he normally would not do, he took a risk. By taking risk like this, Neymar eventually scores in this game. Another time in the commercial where a risk is made is at the very end when the game is tied two to two, and a penalty kick is given to Ronaldo's team. A penalty kick is a one versus one game of chance between a field player and the opposing goalie. The ball is set at the penalty kick line, 12 yards from the goal, and it is a one touch shot straight to goal. Ronaldo is setting up to take the penalty kick against Tim Howard when the teenage boy in the black shirt tells Ronaldo that he will take the kick. By pushing Ronaldo off of the ball, the boy is taking a huge risk, because he decided to take the kick over a professional who has a better chance of making it. Also, he is going up against a professional goalie, and the pressure of winning the game lies on his shoulders. In the end though, he ends up making the penalty kick against professional goalie, Tim Howard. The boy took a risk by taking the penalty kick over Ronaldo, and ends up getting the game winning goal. In the end, it goes to show that in order to win, risk must be taken.

Click to watch "The Last Game"

          "The Last Game" commercial also proves this message. The video starts off by showing natives in Brazil juggling a soccer ball around their home town. Then the video switches to all of the soccer stars playing in soccer matches. The catch is that a man has found a way to clone all of the best soccer players in the world, and make the clones flawless; every decision, every move, every pass they make is flawless. This eventually makes all of the soccer athletes quit the game of soccer, because they can not beat the perfect clones. Until one day, one man decides he wants to watch the real players play the soccer games and not the clones. So he gathers up all of the real soccer players, and convinces them to play a winner takes all game against the clones. The players agree, so they take a risk by playing the clones again, even though the clones have beaten them countless times before. The clones were made perfect, so beating them will be a huge challenge. Also, since the game is winner takes all, the players go in knowing that if they lose they can never play soccer again, so they take this risk. Even knowing all of these things, the players still go for it. The first risk taken in the game is when Neymar Jr passes the ball right to a clones feet on purpose, and ends up confusing the clone, because soccer players do not just purposely pass the ball off to the other team. Then, the second risk taken, is when David Luis does something no soccer player would ever do during a game. He sees the clones have beaten Tim Howard, so all the clones have to do is one touch the ball in the net. Luis however sees this as an opportunity to take a risk, and beats the clones to the ball, but he takes the ball all the way to the goal line. Doing something he would never do, he confuses the clones and they do not score. The final risk is taken when Ronaldo does not shoot the ball at the first chance he sees open goal, because he knows he will not make it; the clone goalie would no doubt save it. Instead Ronaldo waits until more clones enter the field, and he takes on twenty of them. When he gets to goal, instead of shooting, he stops the ball on the goal line then kicks it in. Which is something he would never do, because stopping the ball on the goal line gives defenders a chance to knock the ball away form the goal. But by taking this risk, he was able to fool the clones, and make the game winning goal. All of these players did something they would never do in a normal game, but here they were shown taking chances. By taking risk they won the game.
           In "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game", Nike was able to show the point that in order to win, risk must be taken. The celebrity athletes were shown doing something they normally would not do, and this taken chance helped them win in the end. Nike did well with these two commercials, but  they could have done better by making "The Last Game" commercial real life instead of cartoons. That would have made the commercial more intriguing. Overall though, Nike did right by these commercials in their message. It showed athletes to play outside of their comfort zone and take risk, because even professionals do the unexpected to help them win games.  

CONCLUSION

          The "Risk Everything" campaign will always be one of Nike's best. Nike teamed up with Wieden and Kennedy to produce the commercials "Winner Stays" and "The Last Game". These commercials targeted a wide audience by using a variety of advertising appeals. Not only did they show off some of Nike's newest soccer products, but it also got many people excited for the World Cup. By incorporating these things, and Nike's many famous celebrity endorsers, they were able to prove the point that in order to win, risk must be taken. Nike not only told people to "Just Do It", but they also encouraged people to "Risk Everything" along with it.  

WORKS CITED

ESPN Staff. "World Cup Final Sets U.S. TV Record." ESPN, 15 July 2014. WEB. 28 Nov. 2014.

Nike. "The Last Game." Online Ad. Youtube. Youtube, 9 June 2014. WEB. 28 Nov. 2014.

Nike. "Winner Stays." Online Ad. Youtube. Youtube, 25 April 2014. WEB. 28 Nov. 2014.

O'Reilly, Lara. "11 Things Hardly Anyone Knows About Nike." Business Insider, 4 Nov. 2014.                        WEB. 28 Nov. 2014.

Weiden and Kennedy. Weiden and Kennedy, 2014. WEB. 28 Nov. 2014.