A Continuation of Nike Advertisements
Written by Jimmy Burks
Trying new things is hard. Trying new sports can be even harder. In Nike’s newest advertising campaign, “Play New”, being bad is the focus. Not bad in a cool way either, just being really, really bad at sports. The commercial, which is around a minute in length, has a spectacular amount of failure, from missing a 3 point shot by 8 feet, a tennis serve that went awry, a skateboarder falling on the cement, a surfer getting smashed by a wave, and a few more flounders. The ad ends, however, with everyone smiling and giving it their all to something that they have just started putting their time and effort into to get better and have fun. The whole purpose of the ad was to show how failure isn’t something that we need to look down on, rather something that is necessary to become successful.
This ad campaign is the perfect counter to the Nike brand that has been set over time like the common motivational campaigns such as the well-known “Just Do It” campaign. This campaign is a perfect representation for the target audience that Nike is trying to sell to, which is a demographic that represents those who might not be the best at something but try, which is most people. Although this doesn’t necessarily follow the common motivational pathway that Nike ad usually has, it is motivational in the sense that it shows that we can still have fun while failing and find joy in overcoming the adversity that failure brings. In the ad, it states “Whatever it is you want to do, go for it. Sure, it might not be pretty. But, trying something you’ve never done before is how you ‘play new’. And that’s always a win.”
In the end, Nike and Wieden, and Kennedy hit the mark yet again. They perfectly capture the brand Nike has and the demographic that they are trying to sell to, a demographic made up of teenagers and young adults, and figure out new ways to motivate and find confidence. The ad shows that it doesn't matter if you never go pro in a sport or even get a college scholarship, but rather doing something to see how good you can be and have fun doing it.
