Ananya Tiwari
SC-2, MA Final
Professor Nandini Chandra
21.11.2016
MORE THAN JUST A GAME: ‘JUST DO IT’ AND THE STRATEGIC MELODRAMA OF SPORTS ADS
“…if one were to summarize the most important trends of present-day culture, one could hardly find a more pregnant category than that of sports.” – Theodor Adorno[1]
Sports is more than just a game. It is about passion, team-loyalty, and recreation. It is, according to Adorno, a facet of free-time in a capitalist society, that is essentially ‘useless’, i.e., meaningless, ends-oriented, unconcerned with human survival[2]. For idle spectators of sport—vilified as they often are, it is recreational, imbuing them with enough energy to perform at work the next day; a free-time that is essentially un-free in today’s capitalist world. Or, is it a ‘consciously practiced idiocy’ (Adorno)[3]. If one were to go on this drift, sports would appear to be essentially mindless, seemingly infantile, emancipatory from the seriousness of life – its inner logic and essence of playfulness, supposedly disinterested, gratuitous and useless, offering its own resistance to the reasonableness and purposive logic of a labour-centric world[4].
The complexity of this multi-faceted phenomenon has further thickened. Sports can be differentiated between participant and spectators, between business and cultural pursuit, between universally inclusive and emancipatory, between undemocratic institutional marginalization and socially transcendental. It could be seen as a medium of exploitation of the ‘sports chatter’[5] of a spectator to fuel the profits of various sport-related corporations, or, a symbolic tool used by the government to pioneer social reforms. Contrarily, as a reflector of the various social discriminatory practices of the world, and, an example of the Marxian ‘false consciousness’, i.e., a facade to disguise the actuality of the unequal power relations between classes of a society and oppression of other social groups. That a single stroke of a bat—metaphorically speaking—can have such wide-ranging hits, interpretations and ramifications, is a phenomenon taken for granted in the contemporary society.
To think of it, sports is, and might as well be, transformative, a manner of co-option, ‘a schema of mass culture’[6], an individualistic pursuit. It could be voyeuristic, infantile and playful; an archaic throwback to primitive society, embedded in false consciousness, a ‘useless’ escape from empirical reality, disinterested, recreational and cultural, a safety valve of the society, ‘a simulcra for real competition and contest in the public sphere’[7] (Umberto Eco), democratic, undemocratic…Like all powerful social phenomenon, sports is one beset by its own contradictions and fractures, but no less influential by virtue of it.
Leaving aside the ideological significance of sports: popular sports, the athletic ethics, and spectators’ passion and chatter has spawned multi-billion dollar corporations invested in drilling this arena for profit, creating in the process homogeneous world-wide markets. Overarching sport authorities, like FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) or IOC (International Olympic Committee), have constructed an isolated world with their own rules and franchises—democratic or not, and have expanded globally; governments use sports to increase social and cultural capital of their countries.
Most relevant to this paper is how multi-billion dollar companies selling sports goods, markedly sports shoes, have used sports, its ethics and appeal, to sell its products. Moreover, though the sociological data is derived from earlier sociological research, what will be studied in this paper are the strategies these brands are currently using for marketing campaigns. What emerges is not just a racy ad featuring the most talented of athletes, but a powerful ideological apparatus, with all its internal fissures and contradictions, replicating and reproducing discriminatory power relations that it consciously seeks to destroy.[8] It is an ideological apparatus with roots deep within the contemporary cultural thinking and patterns– including notions of body habitus based on hero worship and Western body ethics, misogyny, racial discrimination, and globalization. The apparatus is so wide-ranging, it is moulding cultural patterns, often affecting the notion of our very selfhood. Sports may be participatory or spectator; disinterested and infantile it is not.
‘A Revolution In Motion’: Globalization, Sports and Media Nexus
Sports, before industrialization, was a sacred and localized affair. With the growth of the newspaper circulation, and capitalism in the 20th century, sports worked alongside media in propagating itself as more and more people fell into corporate-labour jobs, and the need for recreation intensified. ‘Modern sport and modern press grew up together’[9]. Newspapers published the dates of sporting events, even declared prizes. With the onset of television, and advertising, sports channels, advertisements of sport products, too, expanded exponentially.[10]
In the late 20th and current 21st century, the most profound impact on the ever expanding business of sports has been due to globalization. Globalization and technological innovations in the form of the Internet have bridged the distance of the world, culturally, economically and socially. It has resulted in the expansion of not just markets and freer trade, but also of cultural systems and values. This is but naturally reflected in the representations of sports in the media and advertising. Wherein sports used to be a distinguished form of play confined to socio-geographical boundaries, after industrialization, like the markets, sports and its relationship with the media has only spread across the globe, with some taking on global dimensions, such as, football, hockey, chess, athletics, golf etc.
Riding on the backs of these globally recognized sports are multi-billion dollar corporations which seek to use the sporting capital to make their own capital. The market has become almost synonymous to sports, as commodities of sporting goods, merchandise (for example, football jerseys), and sports franchises (Indian Premier League, Union of European Football Associations) have become widely popular among the youth.
Apart from these, sports channels, and companies selling sport goods, like Nike and Adidas, have amassed billions in its wake. Is sports now governed by market values? What makes spectators such docile customers? What are these companies selling in actuality – simple goods with a supposed significance (such as football jerseys) special to the customer/loyal spectator, or an idealized lifestyle and deeply political ideological apparatus? What are the factors that makes sports appealing to the people, and thus the corporations?
To analyze the innate connect of the people to sports, we may take a look at the advertisements of the major sports brands of Nike, Adidas, Reebok, etc. Earlier, sport shoes sold out merely on the merit of their quality that needed no show earlier. Now, the marketing strategies are more ideological, which corporations such as Nike, Puma, Reebok, etc, and other Indian companies, have begun to explore. The values they aim to commodify and sell are various.[11]
For example, ‘Dare to Rise’ by Nike uses talented youngsters belonging to the Native American tribes, such as Umatilla, Iroquois Confederacy, to show how they utilized the power of their sport/talent to achieve success and raise their societal standing. And, in turn, promote the welfare of their communities.
Nike’s famous, and athlete-star studded ‘Unlimited’ campaign is exceptionally novel and unique as an ad campaign.
That the field of sports, from football to basketball to athletics, has various non-white women and men as champions is a fact universally acknowledged. Yet, most are not endowed with endorsements, which make a large amount of a champion athlete’s earnings, as consumers prefer advertisements featuring white/Caucasian, preferably male, athletes. This ad campaign seems conscious of this social disparity, and wishes to use it to make gains. Of the 15 commercials in the ‘Unlimited’ campaign, eight feature women, of which, just two are whites or Caucasians. One is Asian-American, whereas the rest are African-Americans. One ad features a transgender long-distance runner and athlete, Chris Mosier, with the ad pointedly probing into the stigma surrounding a woman surgically opting to be a man, and competing with men. Of the five men, four are of African-American descent, whereas one is a white disabled mountaineer. The ad titled ‘Unlimited Fight’ features women of all ethnicities of the United States – European, African American, Asian, South-Asian, Latin American – and debunks the stereotypes associated with being a sportswoman. The ad titled ‘Unlimited You’, with 37 million hits and counting, is an entertaining ad, which again features all racial types of American society. It signifies a decidedly new approach of Nike, which earlier had formal policies which marginalized/excluded women and athletes of other ethnicities from their campaigns.
There are many other ads which feature non-American athletes as well. For example, ‘Inner Strength: Amna Al Haddad Raises the Bar’, features a UAE woman who transgressed all societal barriers and became an Olympic weightlifter. The viral Nike India ad ‘Da Da Ding’, featuring various women athletes and talent professionals, such as Deepika Padukone, Joshna Chinappa, Rani Rampal etc. is focused on Indian women achieving greatness through fitness. (Yet, it is Nike India YouTube page’s one and only standalone ad targeting women. The rest are either straightforward ads showcasing the newer makes of shoes, or focused on cricket. It is at least a beginning of Nike India, in tapping into the women consumer base of the country, a feat in a nation obsessed with men’s cricket.) This ad also reflects the reality of Indian women choosing and investing in fitness on a large scale, a new, 21st century, post-liberalization trend that is only likely to grow.
A similar approach has been adapted by PUMA India, which began its ‘#DoYou’ campaign in November 2016. Featuring Russian, Latin American and Indian talents (and merely two out of twenty-four of them are white/Caucasian), with one video ad dedicated to each, it aims to go deep into the lives of these women to reveal what motivates them to fight and succeed. (However, the Latin American women are not given an opportunity to speak, and are blatantly objectified, much to the incongruence of the essential purpose of the campaign which purportedly wants to free women from sexual objectification and ridicule).
Reebok India’s ‘#FitToFight Campaign’ roped in the breakthrough actress Kangana Ranaut, the acclaimed Paralympics athlete Deepa Malik, and the entrepreneur and co-founder of The Education Tree, Smriti Singhal, to share their glorious and tumultuous careers, in which they triumphed despite immense resistance. Reebok US ‘#HonourYourDays’ campaign chose five ordinary American women (all white/Caucasian), who are fitness experts, and develop fitness to overcome personal tragedies/setbacks/health hazard in their lives. Reebok US’s ad ‘Portrait of Greatness’ features a US Army veteran (white/Caucasian) who lost both his legs, and despite using prosthetic limbs, made his way out of his misery. He is now a motivational speaker for amputees.
Disabled athletes, especially those who had participated in the Paralympics, have been peppered in such ad campaigns. Nike’s ‘Unlimited Scout Bassett’ is about Scout Bassett, an Asian-American amputee triathlete who faced all odds and downfalls, made various sacrifices, and qualified for US 100m. Though not disabled, ‘Unlimited Youth’ features an 86 year old nun, Sister Madonna Buder (white/Caucasian) who has won various marathons, Ironmans (a swimming marathon in the freezing Atlantic waters) and cycling marathons. Deepa Malik featured in Reebok’s ‘#FitToFight’ campaign. Indian Paralympics winners featured in IndusInd Bank’s promotional ad ‘#JeetKaHalla’, which begins with a ‘Did You Know?’ quote raising awareness as to the multitude of medals Paralympics athletes have won for the country. Its aim is to urge the public to support these athletes at the Rio 2016. Even ads such as Adani Groups’ ‘#GarvHai’, Star Sports’ ‘#BillionCheers’ featuring Dipa Karmakar, Tata Salts’ ‘#NamakKeVaaste’ featuring Shiva Thapa and Babita Kumari urge viewers to support these Indian athletes at the Rio Olympics as a form of patriotism and pride for the country.
In the escalating race for profit, riding piggyback on the liberal thinking and values of the public, these companies are adopting a new approach of using sporting athletes of various communities and genders, an unprecedented event, to influence more consumers. This is to tap into new markets, divided by the corporate professionals by ethnic and gender divisions.
Influenced by democratic, ethical and socially-inclusionary principles, they aim to create an image of a corporation that is aiming at more than just profit – they aim to lodge themselves as trusted, ethical, inclusive and progressive brands. Though the ethical angle of the ads is not problematic in themselves, they are essentially a facade, a screen that obscures the reality of societal discrimination, as will be explored, and presents an idealistic vision that is hollow and falsely inspirational. In an attempt to use the visual medium to convey such humane, motivational, heroic and democratic values, this art-form of commercial advertising has entered a terrain riddled with contradictions and paradoxes.
‘Do You’: Body Politic Informing Ads
‘How you act and how you think are one and the same. The way you use your body is a metaphor for your life…there is no separation between your body and yourself.’[12]
Though known to all, still somewhat overlooked, it is nevertheless phenomenal the manner in which these companies draw from contemporary body politic, and formulate their own body politic or sales pitch. The body has become a facet of one’s identity; its mannerisms, construction and looks meant to distinguish one as belonging to a particular community, region, clique or class. By extending Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of cultural, social and symbolic capital[13], there emerges the body capital, an embodiment of the former three, on the body. Each culture has a distinctive body capital. It is also what, and which differentiates these ads from the regular cosmetic ads. The cosmetic ads are focused more explicitly on Bourdieu’s body capital or habitus, wherein one uses one’s body to achieve cultural, social and symbolic capital, but though these ads seem to propagate a holistic philosophy which is focused on fitness/sports’ transformative and emancipatory potential, they are also embedded with the same logic as of the cosmetic ads.
Body habitus differs for every culture. For example, in contemporary Indian society, the ideal woman is, still, a fair, petite, non-working woman (though these trends are breaking at various levels of society as well). This beauty capital, one can say, is what will enable the woman to make marital connections which will, if things pan ideally, result in upward social mobility (preferably in the same caste) (cultural and symbolic capital). The US ideal of beauty in both men and women is an objectified, heavily ripped/toned body aspiring to look like the models in media (and with the advent of the infamous reality stars, the Kardashians, it has tilted towards a more curvaceous, but no less stifling body-type, reminiscent, interestingly, to black womens’ bodies with their ample curvy body structure). In the US, the body of men and women is commodified and rendered completely sexual, as is evidenced and reproduced in its powerful media and lifestyle practices. In Italy, for example, a healthy, even plump, body of a woman is seen as a healthy, fertile and active body, whereas a thin, emaciated one is perceived to be unhealthy and passive. The body, thus, has become a project with which it tries to attain distinction, a construction or accumulation of body habitus which makes one gain social capital.
(Bourdieu also distinguishes a working class body, who approach the body as an end in itself, as a medium of doing labour contrasted with the dominant class body which sees the body as a project to be developed and furthered in its health and fitness and beauty to distinguish themselves from the rest of the populace. This is another undercurrent of the fitness culture – as the shoes are those that can be bought by those who are definitely not poor. In the Indian society, it is the English-speaking, professional classes, the indefinable middle-class, and above, which have been exposed to these products, and who are definitely more likely to adopt the fitness culture propagated by these brands. It might even become, or has become, a part of their body/cultural capital.)
‘Thus, bodies are involved in the creation and reproduction of social difference, and bear the imprint of social class because of the individual’s location, the formation of their habitus, and the development of their tastes.’[14] In this scenario, sports and lifestyle choices play an important role in formation of body, or class habitus, and thus symbolic value, though how this politic informing these ads has been formed is worth exploring.
‘Honour Your Body’: Body Politic and the Fitness Culture
These advertisers draw on the recurrent body culture in Western culture. The West has always propagated a culture of the adulation of the body. Since the time of the Greek civilization, the body – its finesse, beauty and development – has been a powerful trend in the Western ethos. Though it subsided and was pushed underground during the medieval times by the oppressive, Puritanical, and zealous Catholic Church, the emphasis on the marvel of the human body re-emerged during the Renaissance period. This is evident in the art of the period, wherein earlier, Christian imagery and 2-D paintings, with bare minimum show of skin gave way to the overt exaltation of the body of both man and woman by the time of the Renaissance and beyond.
The body culture as we know of today, with its emphasis on diet, clothes, sports and gymnastics, first appeared about 1880 in Germany. It was adopted by German Socialist Workers’ Movement, noted by Marx, and crystallized under the label fizicheskaya kultura in Russian, and was in turn translated into English as ‘physical culture’[15]. The training and fitness of the body, in order to be a more able and stronger citizen of the country, had fascist undertones during the 20th century. The power of the Church, and its Puritanical ethos finally crumbled and gave way for modernity at the end of the Victorian era. With the emergence of the United States as a political, military and economic superpower, the industrialization and the consequent commercialization of American culture, and the spread of films – the outright display of the body, and its fitness, became mainstream.
‘Don’t Let Limits Define You’: Making Heroes of the Athletes Using Fitness Culture
This culture of fitness that has exploded in the past few decades has additional socio-political underpinnings. The narrative of the hero[16], as one transcending boundaries and obstacles to emerge victorious, is a constant refrain in all these advertisements. Earlier, the concentration was on male athletes, but currently, as is evident from the numerous ads selected that released in 2015-2016, athletes of various genders and ethnicities are also getting featured in them. This myth of a hero, as combating all physical and mental obstacles, like Achilles, or Hercules, is drawn heavily from the Western history and tradition.
Hero figures, in mythology, religion and public life, are indispensable features of any society and culture. They embody the ethos of a civilization, and figure as role models for the people to draw from them their ethics, behaviour and values. The mythologization of heroic individuals in popular culture works to consolidate the cultural identity of its people, strengthening and solidifying it. In a world of diversity, difference, and fragmentation, myths form a basis for the culture of a community to stand its ground.[17]
These myths are drawn from the society, and are not created by the advertisers. With sports functioning, as it does, as an emancipatory, heroic force of nature, wherein the man/woman triumph against all odds on sheer physical and mental prowess, it seems almost instinctive to put heroism of the military Achilles-kind, in tandem with athletes. These are not heroes transcending just physical barriers, but also, on most platforms, function as the representative of a particular nation, or community. These adverts, therefore, draw upon these instinctual currents of society and create a narrative that not just appeals, but powerfully impacts the viewers, urging them, propelling them even, to take action (be it, however, wearing their brand shoes).
The myth of the hero is not limited to physical fitness alone – no brand which seeks to capture the global markets aims its guns at the legs when it could aim for the heart. Take the examples of Amna Al Haddad Raises the Bar, Move with Hart @Shawn, I Am My Resolution, PUMA’s #DoYou, #Fight4Fairness – PUMA Heritage, Reebok’s #FitToFight – Be More Human, Humans of Reebok, Reebok #HonourYourDays, Lenovo’s #PitchToHer and Sport England’s This Girl Can – I Jiggle Therefore I am. All these ad campaigns are born of an essential media marketing strategy that is novel, and will most probably, in the near future, be adapted by more and more corporations, sports or not, to promote their products.
They espouse a mantra that forms the crux of the fitness culture of the West – that the fitness of the body, mind and soul is interconnected (as in yoga). And in the current world of ever-rising inequality, unemployment, slowdown of economies, increasing work hours and stress, unpredictable events or tragedies, increasing bouts of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety – one can only turn to the development of the body via fitness for an escape from such debilitating circumstances. This connect between the mental and physical health is the philosophy of life which these ads seek to sell (though in Indian culture, it has been propagated for centuries through yoga – perhaps, the globalization of yoga has propagated this belief even more, too, though this is mere conjecture.) Reebok’s Humans of Reebok campaign goes a step further. An ad featuring the head office of Reebok in Massachusetts, US, it shows how fitness has been made an integral and perhaps non-negotiable factor of their employees’ lives. The office boasts of running tracks, swimming pools, gymnasiums, and dance halls packed with its employees training their bodies. These corporate heads claim that their company practices what it preaches. Reebok’s #HonourYourDays ads, too, show how ordinary women, chosen for their fitness prowess, fought personal/health tragedies by training their body to be stronger. The rhetoric of the hero who fights odds through fitness and exercise, is an ideology that is now being extended to women, and men and women of racial minority groups such as blacks and Asians, and because it draws on the body politic and the consequent fitness culture that has permeated, of the West, functions as a form of subtle cultural domination. Seemingly, advertisements today, like the myths of the past, act as a mechanism of socialization.
‘I Jiggle, Therefore I Am’: Body Habitus Informing Ads Featuring Women
In a path-breaking piece of work[18], Hoffman gives an illustrative narrative of the trends of depictions of women in advertising campaigns. He gives a very structural framework to the various poses, positions and demeanours adopted by women in the ads that make them appear submissive and inferior to men. He observed that men in advertisements are often portrayed as alert, standing upright, with serious expressions and controlled demeanours, etc. These depict masculinity, bravery, rationality, strength and effectiveness. Women are shown as touching self, caressing an object, lying on the floor, not alert, confused, vulnerable, childlike, seductive, playful and careless – positions of powerlessness and submissiveness. He says that though people know that these depictions are not real, they are still influential as they represent an image that most believe to be essentially natural and correct. The female body is sexually commodified and used to sell products, a phenomenon much in occurrence everywhere. These are called gender displays, drawn from the collective idealizations and constructions of gender norm of the society, even if reality breaks these notions constantly.
Such depictions have been used to permeate sports’ ads too, especially those featuring female athletes, such as Maria Sharapova, and even Serena Williams, who are made to accentuate their physical assets. These selected ads attempt to break free from this tradition. In an attempt to connect more resonantly with an increasingly defiant female consumer base around the world, these new strain of ads do not ask its athletes or models to imbibe any such gender displays. They are shown like their male counterparts – as training rigorously, painstakingly and tenaciously, to attain victory. Most women featured in these ads talk about their personal struggles, including sexism, but the emphasis is more on the struggle that transcends sexist discrimination and is more personal and credible.
Yet, the approach is a double-edged sword. While it constructs a framework seeking to set women free, and adulates such fierce women, it simultaneously builds an ideology – that only physically fit women are meant to be free, independent and happy. It must not be forgotten too, that though it encourages women to face all odds through sports, it also automatically demeans and condescends those who do not use physical therapy to move higher.
The portrayal of women in sports, though not constricted to gender displays, are contradictory and problematic on the consumer level as well. Choosing athletes to share their daily routines and success stories in unbiased manner is one thing; but buying the product as a non-athlete consumer and spectator has an entirely different connotation. Stripped of the heroism of these female athletes or talents, these ads and companies seek to promote a highly idealized vision.
For example, women glamour magazines – such as Cosmopolitan, Femina, Vogue – seek to promote a woman who ‘has it all’, is beautiful, fit, working, and a mother/wife – juggling all these various demanding roles with ease. This is the New Woman, a post-feminist ideal that uses second-wave feminism’s goal of autonomy, liberation and divergence, and turns it on itself, masking the ills (domestic violence, sexual harassment, pay parity, discrimination, class/racial discrimination etc), and reducing success (as a woman) to lifestyle choices. ‘It is a rhetoric to make the market seem pro-women’[19]. And, though women are not represented as hollow models, it simultaneously promotes unattainable bodies, centered around the body politic of the white, heterosexual women ‘primarily valued for their youth.’[20] In reality, the assertion of personal strength is, essentially, equated with attaining heterosexual attractiveness, wherein ‘the properly shaped body is taken as evidence of achievement and self-worth’[21]. These ads commodify the feminist ideals and only create a false consciousness narrative which is no different than the practices feminism attacked in the first place.
The fact that these athletes are making inroads into a jealously guarded male domain is to be applauded. But, in actuality, the ads are a more disguised, but no less faultless manifestation of an ideological apparatus that seeks to modify, mould and control women and their bodies. It is therefore embedded in the contemporary power relations of society, despite its supposedly emancipatory dialectic. “Nevertheless, insofar as the disciplinary practices of femininity produce a ‘subjected and practiced’, an inferiorized, body, they must be understood as aspects of a far larger discipline, an oppressive and in-egalitarian system of sexual subordination. This system aims at turning women into the docile and compliant companions of men just as surely as the army aims to turn its raw recruits into soldiers.”[22]
Thus, despite using taglines such as ‘do not let limits define you’, ‘do you’, ‘fight for fairness’, these ads create limitations of their own, legitimizing the very misogyny it aims to extinguish via the power of sports.
‘You Are Not Supposed to Be Here’: The Problematic Racism Rhetoric
There is another web of power relations these ads expose and problematize – that of racism. These selected ads feature an exceptionally large section of the African-American community, both men and women. This leads to the question – should sports be democratic? The instinctive answer is yes, in this democratic world, all sports should open their gates to people of all races, classes and genders. Yet, this is not so, as sports being an institution, is structured around the power relations of the society, an oft repeated, taken for granted phrase, but no less true or influential. Organized sports, as critics have studied, is an arena that potently reflects the power relations of a society. Sports is a masculine sphere which is meant to exclude women and (in case of sports played in Western countries) people of other races. In India, cricket, hockey, wrestling etc., draws men (and women) from all strata of the society, if they have the talent. But it still excludes women, as is evidenced by the media reportage of women sports in newspapers.
In a way, these ads reflect a reality wherein African American and other minority races have 60% and 80 %, respectively, participation rates than the national average on England at 54%. National participation rates for white women are 39%, whereas they are 45% for black women and 41% for other minorities. Despite these figures, structural racism and marginalization is potent in contemporary sports. Moreover, in sports such as football, basketball, rugby, etc., the men or women holding institutional power are mostly white men.[23]
Despite the African-American women and men represented in these selected ads, evidence exists that despite high rates of participation and success, they continue to face discriminatory practices. Blacks in America are underrepresented in the professions, government and business, and overrepresented in manual labour. However, one arena wherein they have made significant progress is sports. For example, though blacks make only 12% of the population of the US, they make 80% of the players in the National Basketball Association. These ads pay heed to the high level of participation of black men and women in sports.[24]
This was mirrored in the endorsements as well. Earlier, black and white athletes were represented differently – the black ones were shown to succeed through innate physical abilities whereas the white men and women through sheer hard work and persistence.[25] This discrimination is not evident in these ads, which represent all men, and women, in the same strain – as athletes who struggle hard to win championships.
Some ads, however, do offer an explicit commentary on racism. The tagline of the ‘Come Out of Nowhere’ ad campaign featuring basketball star LeBron James, who is black, reads ‘You are not supposed to be here’. That LeBron James himself did not face racism is not important (he signed a million dollar deal with Nike when he was 18 years old). It’s the fact that he is black, and in the current socio-political situation, he is regarded as an oppressed minority. The ad uses this political reasoning and exploits his ethnic identity, despite his incredible talent that faced no opposition in reality. It does so to intensify its impact on the minds of the consumers. Another ad campaign which makes explicit reference to racism (and sexism) is PUMA’s ‘#Fight4Fairness’ ad. Its blurb reads ‘PUMA athletes have fought through hardships and against the odds to rise against discrimination, racism, poverty, and sexism in sports. These athletes have fought to play, and fought to rise above.’ PUMA defines such athletes as legends, which they are, though regardless of their racial identities, and more due to their innate talent. These ads use the discrimination factor to supposedly spread awareness, a divergence from their earlier biased representation. However, it is also but a gimmick to add fuel to their ad campaigns, along with targeting the consumer base of minority communities.
According to sociological studies, the aggressive marketing of these shoes companies using black people has yet again created a stereotype of them, and ‘has led black youths to disdain more conventional forms of success in their pursuit for athletic glory.’[26] Black youth interpret these models as real role models, but maybe this is true for youth of all communities and ethnicities. It notes that black youths are more likely, since ads depict (falsely, in order to make the white-man’s ego accept it, perhaps) black athletes as persisting due to innate ability than merely handwork, that a career in sports is possible even if it is not.[27] However, such sociological studies warrant more attention and deeper study in themselves to reveal if they, too, have been influenced by racism or not. These stereotypes are now accepted, and are rarely challenged.
These sports brands do their best in not discriminating between black and white counterparts. Yet, the fact that more blacks are represented in them points that these companies are using, implicitly, the racism card, to intensify the rhetoric of the myth of the hero to make them more effective and powerful, to lull the audience out of their couches and into the gym, wearing their shoes, the same manner in which the myth of hero rhetoric is also being exploited by the ads featuring women.
‘How Will You #MakeItCount’ – Conclusion
The debate over the veracity and ethical impact of these ads is a debatable concept if the ads are studied in isolation. All art forms, like films, novels, literature, have socio-economic undercurrents that can be deconstructed to further enable an understanding of the existing power structures of a society – such as cultural domination due to globalisation, racism and misogyny – and how identities are modified or moulded by them. These ads have been analyzed as such – as visual forms of artistic expression that function as a reading of the thinking that has permeated popular culture and its patterns. Yet, they are, most importantly, a proponent of competition in a capitalist market-place.
With the growing competition of corporations, these brands are now seeking not just more profit but consumer loyalty and devotion. They wish to outdo the other in emerging as the most reliable and trusted brand, concerned also with people’s aspirations and potential. As sports continues to expand as a business, we as consumers and spectators can expect more innovative thinking that attempts to snatch the viewers’ attention with the commodification of democratic/Western values of justice and egalitarianism, heroism, glory and power of the self, and the fitness culture, without paying attention to the internal fractures in its reasoning and portrayal.
At the end of the day, as consumers, we ought to be diligent and critical. ‘We used to live in a system where people needed commodities but now commodities need people.’[28] We have entered an age of advertising, wherein consumption is now ‘the vanguard of history’[29] and adverts are bombarded onto us from everywhere. It is therefore essential and our duty as conscious citizens, to keep our eyes open for the blank spaces, which warrant our immediate and critical attention.
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Adorno, Theodor. 1991. “Free Time”, in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, J.M. Bernstein (ed.), pp. 187-197 (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
Bourdieu, Pierre. ‘Forms of Capital’, in J. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, 1986 (Greenwood: New York), pp. 241-258.
[1] Morgan, William. “Adorno on Sport: The Case of the Fractured Dialectic”, in Theory and Society, Vol. 17, No. 6 (Nov., 1988), pp. 813-838.
[2] Adorno, Theodor. 1991. “Free Time”, in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, J.M. Bernstein (ed.), pp. 187-197 (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
[3] Morgan, William. “Adorno on Sport: The Case of the Fractured Dialectic”, in Theory and Society, Vol. 17, No. 6 (Nov., 1988), pp. 813-838.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Sports chatter – “A term coined by Italian academic Umberto Eco in a magazine/newspaper essay written in 1969. Eco sees sports activity as a form of ‘waste’, labels ‘the athlete as monster’ when forms of ‘play’ become ‘spectacle for others’, and claims that the boundaries between doing sport and merely talking about it have become blurred: ‘since chatter about sport gives the illusion of interest in sport, the notion of practicing sport becomes confused with that of talking sport; the chatterer thinks himself an athlete and is no longer aware that he doesn’t engage in sport’. Eco is no fan of sport, and calls his essays in this genre his ‘invectives against sport’. And if sport equals ‘Waste’, for Eco, ‘sports chatter is the glorification of Waste, and therefore the maximum point of Consumption’ (‘Sports Chatter’, in Travels in Hyper Reality: Essays, 1986).”
http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100524933#, accessed 24.10.2016
[6] As will be explored in the paper – Adorno, Theodor. 1991. “The Schema of Mass Culture”, in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, J.M. Bernstein (ed.), pp. 61-97 (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
[7] Eco, Umberto. Accessed 24/10/2016, https://leftwrite.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/the-discipline-of-spectator-sports/
[8] Adorno, Theodor. 1991. “The Schema of Mass Culture”, in The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, J.M. Bernstein (ed.), pp. 61-97 (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
[9] Grant, Jarvie (ed.). 2006. Sports, Culture and Society: An Introduction (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group: London and New York).
[10] Ibid.
[11] All these ads have been arranged in a tabular format with all references, at the end of the paper.
[12] Claire Schmais, coordinator of the dance/movement therapy programme at University of New York’s hunter College.
[13] Bourdieu, Pierre. ‘Forms of Capital’, in J. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, 1986 (Greenwood: New York), pp. 241-258.
[14] Grant, Jarvie (ed.). 2006. Sports, Culture and Society: An Introduction (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group: London and New York).
[15] Ibid.
[16] Andrews, David & Jackson, Steven. 2005. Sport, Culture and Advertising: Identities, Commodities and the Politics of Representation (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
[17] “Here it is necessary, interesting and significant to note that many consider advertisements to be the myths of contemporary culture (e.g. Leymore, 1975; Kellner, 1995; Twitchell, 1996). Varda Langholz Leymore (1975) argues that similarly to myth, advertising fortifies accepted modes of behaviour and operates as an anxiety-reduction mechanism resolving contradictions in a complex and/or confusing society. Leymore (1975: 156) remarks that “[t]o the constant nagging dilemmas of the human condition, advertising gives a simple solution . . . [advertising] simultaneously provokes anxiety and resolves it.” Correspondingly, Douglas Kellner (1995: 247) observes that like myths, advertisements attempt to “resolve social contradictions, provide models of identity, and celebrate the existing social order.” – Andrews, David & Jackson, Steven. 2005. Sport, Culture and Advertising: Identities, Commodities and the Politics of Representation (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
[18] Goffman, Erving. 1979. Gender Advertisements (Harper and Row Publishers, Inc.: New York).
[19] Andrews, David & Jackson, Steven. 2005. Sport, Culture and Advertising: Identities, Commodities and the Politics of Representation (Routledge, Taylor and Francis: London and New York).
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Dufur, Mikaela. “Race Logic and “‘Being Like Mike’: Representations of Athletes in Advertising, 1985-1994”, in Sociological Focus, Vol. 30, No. 4 (October 1997), pp. 345-356.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Grant, Jarvie (ed.). 2006. Sports, Culture and Society: An Introduction (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group: London and New York).
[29] Ibid.
| BRAND | CAMPAIGN | Famous Personality | PLOT/
MESSAGE |
||||||
| Name | Profession | Gender | Race/Ethnicity | ||||||
| NIKE | N7 DARE TO RISE – Celebrate Native American Heritage month with Nike N7 collection
(November 2016) |
Martin Sensmeier
|
Actor
|
M
|
Tlingit and Koyukon Athabascan Tribes Ambassador
|
“Dare to rise. We are athletes, creators and scholars – different talents, different tribes, same unstoppable drive. Celebrate Native American Heritage Month, and help enable Native American and Aboriginal youth to live active lifestyles through the power of sport.”
Native American tribe descendants attempt to play sports to overcome their situation and promote the welfare of their communities.
Nike. “N7 Dare to Rise – Martin Sensmeier”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2_6ovFrMnU. YouTube, Nov. 14. 2016. Web. Nike. “N7 Dare to Rise – Jude Schimmel”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlUt54ESu78 YouTube, Nov. 10. 2016. Web. Nike. “N7 Dare to Rise – Lyle Thompson”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQx1cuN5imM YouTube, Nov. 7. 2016. Web. |
|||
| Jude Schimmel
|
Basketball player
|
F | Umatilla Tribes Ambassador | ||||||
| Lyle Thompson | Lacrosse player | M | Iroquois Confederacy Ambassador | ||||||
| Come Out of Nowhere –
(October 2016) |
Lebron James | Basketball player | M | African-American | “Your circumstances don’t determine your outcome. Come out of Nowhere like LeBron James.
For those who are strong enough to believe, strong enough to pick themselves up off the ground, strong enough to do what the doubters say can’t be done…
Whether you are supposed to be here or not… Here you are.” “You’re not supposed to be here” – features Mexican immigrants entering the US, girls/Asian-Americans trying to play sports, blacks rebelling against their outcast status. “You’re not supposed to be here. And yet, here you are.”
Nike. “Come Out of Nowhere – LeBron James”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOZxIpy6Gm4 YouTube, Oct. 25. 2016. Web. |
||||
| Unlimited Campaign
(June-September 2016) Nike. “Unlimited Campaign”. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nike+unlimited YouTube. June-September 2016. Web. |
|||||||||
| Unlimited Greatness | Serena Williams | Tennis | F | African-American | “From Compton’s courts to the world stage. This is the story of the greatest athlete ever.”
Beginning with words displayed across the screen, in the respective order – Compton, Sister, Outsider, Pro, #304 (rank), Winner, top 10, Paris, London, New York, Melbourne, #1. Injured, struggling, #169, done, comeback, focused, #1, legend, greatest female athlete ever. Greatest [the word ‘female’ is scratched out] athlete ever. The storyline focuses on the tumultuous but legendary career of Serena Williams, constructing it using just a few words. It is what they do in the end that is interesting. The words ‘greatest female athlete’ is displayed, only immediately, the word ‘female’ is scratched out, to read ‘greatest athlete ever’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw0MmCgxDow
|
||||
| Unlimited Scout Bassett | Scout Bassett | Amputee triathlete | F | Asian-American | “The only person that’s going to have power over me, is me.” Scout Bassett doesn’t just push limits. She sets them
Scout Bassett is a Paralympian triathlete who narrates the story, over her training footage, of her struggle against her condition, the sacrifices she had to make in order to train to be a runner, her low points in her career, and her success mantra that comes through sheer hard work, commitment and grit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzj29XCl2aQ
|
||||
| Unlimited Fight | African American, Asian, South Asian, European women | “Don’t let limits define you.”
Featuring girls/young women of black, Caucasian (European), Asian, South Asian ethnicities (though all American), this commercial debunks the stereotypes that are inflicted on these women, such as ‘they say I am too big, too fast, too tough, too pretty, not pretty enough, I win, I win too much, I have to stop, I am too me, I am not what they want me to be, I still win.’ Highlighting the fact that no matter what these women do, people will judge them, and the fact that they just need to have a thick skin to get through. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ6vJ5o4GDE
|
|||||||
| Unlimited Will | Kyle Maynard | Quadruple Amputee Mountaineer, mixed martial arts athlete | M | United States, White | “Limits are only limits if you let them be.”
Kyle Maynard has no legs or arms, and still managed to climb Mount Kilimanjaro without prosthetics. An ad of working hard and pushing his limits, with Maynard shown climbing a snow peaked mountain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7A3cBhvA0k
|
||||
| Unlimited Youth | Sister Madonna Buder (86 years old) | Nun/Marathon runner, swimmer, cyclist | F | United States, white | Begins with a still of a nun named Sister Madonna Buder, 86 years old, praying at a pulpit. The ad traverses her going for a run, cycling track, swimming a race in the ocean (45 Ironman races), and a winner of many trophies.
‘She’s a still a bit active at her age…which is good…maybe a bit too active. Naptime, sister?’ ‘Do your thing, sister, do your thing.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEf7MoQYgzE
|
||||
| Unlimited Gabby Douglas | Gabby Douglas | Gymnast | F | African-American | ‘I knew from the day I taught her to cartwheel, she was gonna be something.’ Says Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas’s sister, who taught her a cartwheel when Gabby was seven. The next day, Gabby was doing multiple cartwheels. Routines gymnasts take years to learn she could learn in days, her sister says. These anecdotes are narrated over the video of Douglas’s training – of her inspiration, drive and determination. Power, intensity, grace, spirit, ambition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tx5I2vK4MU
|
||||
| Unlimited Courage | Chris Mosier | Duathlete | Trans, M | American, white | Chris Moseir is the first transgender athlete to make the men’s national team. She changed her sex from female to male. As Chris runs marathons, the narrator keeps questioning him. The narrator asks, how did you know you’d be strong enough to compete against men, and that he would even be allowed to compete. To which Chris honestly replies, I didn’t. The narrator probes, that must have been tough, didn’t you ever just want to give up? Chris replies, I did, but I didn’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9gxCEwnJBY
|
||||
| Unlimited Ashton Eaton | Ashton Eaton | Olympic decathlete | M | Bi-racial (African-American, Caucasian) | “Something that inspires me the most is people that do something that’s never been done.”
Over the stills of Ashton Eaton’s rigorous training routine, he narrates what inspires and motivates him, how struggle is essential, as if you stick through it you come out stronger, and how he feels that his motivation now, apart from winning medals, is to achieve something bigger than himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pobLgR6UV5g
|
||||
| Unlimited Alex Morgan | Alex Morgan | Soccer player | F | United States, white | “I’m all in, 100% and I want to be the best in the world.”
As she trains, she narrates how sports brings out her essence, how she feels that millions want her to succeed for her team, an honour she doesn’t take lightly, what keeps her going are the little girl fans in the stadium. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZqmhoFez7w
|
||||
| Unlimited Airtime | Zach LaVine, Aaron Gordon | Basketball players | M | biracial (African-American, Caucasian)
|
“Zach and Aaron defy gravity, defy reality, defy limits.”
Two of the best dunkers of the sport of basketball attempt to try a stunt with a speeding car, propulsion of Gordon as the car hits a barrier (he is on top), and the eventual basketball dunk he achieves with the help of LaVine despite flying in the air. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVyED3KY3OY
|
||||
| Unlimited You | Caucasian, Asian-American, African-American, South Asian – American | With 37 million hits (and counting), this ad features a narrator inspiring young amateur players to go for it, but when they do go for it, they do not stop at just winning one race, but attempt to compete against the best in the game themselves (like Neymar, Serena Williams etc), much to the horror of the narrator, who keeps screaming them to stop crossing their limits beyond a limit. “Everybody is going way…too…far!” It is hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEX7KhIA3bU
|
|||||||
| Unlimited Allyson Felix | Allyson Felix | Track and field sprinter | F | African-American | “What makes Allyson truly fearless, is that she is not afraid to lose. If you’re not afraid of that, you go after anything. You look at whatever your wildest dream is.” As Allyson trains, her brother narrates of her determined, competitive nature since when she was young, and her passion that keeps her moving forward, and how she is his hero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL21GFMY9SM
|
||||
| Unlimited Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce | Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce | Track and field sprinter | F | Jamaican, African-American | “If the world is coming, what do you do? You prepare.”
Pryce fought against people’s disbelief and ignorance, and she still made it. Is not American, has a Jamaican accent too. Grit, tenacity, passion, intensity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d94Cj-sRQRA
|
||||
| Unlimited Mo Farah | Mo Farah | Long-distance runner | M | Ethiopian, Black | “The training is relentless. Day after day. Mile after mile. Race day is the easy part for Mo Farah. He spends months at a time away from his family, training at a high altitude camp in Ethiopia. He’s stood at the top of the podium before, but he knows if he wants to do it again and defy his limits, he has to keep climbing.”
Mo Farah begins by saying there is no magic, and that there is pain every day, as the camera travels to his high-altitude training camp in Ethiopia. “Training is harder for him than racing. Mental part is the hard part, 100 miles + every week. You can always give it more than you think you have. What drives me is knowing you have made your country proud, your nation, and I want to go out there and do it for my family, impress my kids that daddy was great.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_shug-k45Oo
|
||||
| Unlimited Simone Biles | Simone Biles | Olympic artistic gymnast | F | African-American | (Was recently body-shamed by her own coach.)
“When I see how dedicated she is, it humbles me.” Yet again, as she is training, her mother narrates her story from childhood, of her non-stop energy, competitive, stubborn nature, focused, driven nature, her incredible dedication which humbles her. Vision, force, invincibility, dreams, conviction. Courage, determination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZmHTaMWse0
|
||||
| Inner Strength: Amna Al Haddad Raises the Bar
(April 2016) |
Amna Al Haddad | Olympic weightlifting athlete | F | UAE, Muslim | “Five years ago, Amna Al Haddad was a young journalist in the United Arab Emirates with an unhealthy lifestyle. His April 25 she hopes to qualify for the 2016 Olympics [which she did].”
Amna Al Haddad wears a hijab as she weight lifts, and talks of her fitness journey from an unhealthy person, to an Olympic athlete. How it changed her view for strength sports for women, and how she does not show all aspects of her personality, how there is a lot going on under the hijab. How she broke a lot of barriers for Muslim women, there is a lot of resistance, a lot of rejection, but its then you know that you are tapping into something untouched, and that is when you start to pave a path for others. That was what pushes her. Be who you want to be, most important thing is to be active, an everyday person who just made it happen. She was not given the tools, she has to figure it out herself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51EafVvqrxY Apr 21, 2016
|
||||
| Move With Hart @ Shawn
(April 2016) |
Kevin Hart | Comedian | M | African-American | As a campaign gimmick, Nike chooses a woman whose boyfriend is de-motivated, lazy and rarely goes out of the house. Kevin Hart goes to his house impromptu, and takes him for a run, even with an Olympic runner (Matthew Centrowitz), to make him see that the only way to move forward in life is to take action and move, and get out.
The philosophy guiding these brands, in a nutshell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VqMjGFlpFs Apr 6, 2016 |
||||
| How Will You #MakeItCount (January 2012)
Nike. “How Will You #MakeItCount”. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=How+Will+You+%23MakeItCount+ YouTube. January 2012. Web. |
Luol Deng | Basktetball Player | M | African-American | “In 2011 Luol Deng and the Chicago Bulls finished with the best record in the league, but fell just short of reaching the NBA Finals. The British forward now has his sights set on achieving his ultimate goal before returning to his home town to represent his country. This video shows how he’s going to #makeitcount in 2012.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB6bdaTUxVY Jan 16, 2012 |
||||
| Perri Shakes-Drayton | Track and field athlete | F | African-American | “Perri Shakes-Drayton is a European Championships 400m hurdles bronze medallist born and bred in London’s East End.
This video shows how she is going to #makeitcount this year.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZsJSoAjL8I Jan 13, 2012 |
|||||
| Harry Main | BMX Biker | M | British, Caucasian | One of the world’s best BMX park riders, Harry is known for his innovative style and total dedication. How will he make 2012 count?
“Master that can’t be done” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0zV6XTFPyQ Jan 11, 2012 |
|||||
| Mark Cavendish | Road-racing cyclist | M | British, Caucasian | “Mark Cavendish is the world’s fastest cyclist, currently holding both the Tour de France green jersey and world champion rainbow jersey. This is how he’s going to #makeitcount in 2012.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzue7yNbV8 Jan 6, 2012 |
|||||
| Jack Wilshere | Footballer | M | British, Caucasian | “Jack Wilshere is the youngest ever player to represent Arsenal in the league — he came through the youth ranks and made his international debut by the humble age of 19. This is how he is going to #makeitcount in 2012.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1SE6WUK0sY Jan 6, 2012 |
|||||
| Mo Farah | Long-distance runner | M | Ethiopia, Black | “Mo Farah is the 5,000m world champion and 5,000m and 10,000m European champ. This is how he’s going to #makeitcount this year.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KsOs_qBvAU Jan 4, 2012 |
|||||
| Rio Ferdinand | Footballer | M | British, bi-racial (African, Caucasian) | “Rio Ferdinand has played over 250 games for Manchester United and has been capped by his country 81 times. This is how he’s going to #makeitcount in 2012.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IU9DQZj_Yg Jan 2, 2012 |
|||||
| Paula Radcliffe | Long-distance runner | F | British, Caucasian | “In 2003 Paula Radcliffe ran the marathon in 2:15:25 – a time which has yet to be beaten by any woman in the world. This is how she is going to #makeitcount this year.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWQ80N1SjM8 Dec 31, 2011 |
|||||
| Da Da Ding
(July 2016) Nike. “Da Da Ding”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UvPZ8fD4B8
YouTube. July 10 2016. Web. |
Joshna Chinappa | Squash player | F | Indian, South-Asian | “It’s time to lace up those shoes. It’s time to go turbo!”
|
||||
| Shweta Hakke | Sprinter, Track | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Rani Rampal | Hockey player | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Gabriella Demetriades | Model | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Ishita Malaviya | (India’s first) professional surfer | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Jaie Bhadane | Model | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Deepika Padukone | Actor, Badminton player | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Naina Mansukhani | Songwriter, Rapper | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Swetha Subbiah | Fitness Trainer | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Jyoti Ann Burrett | Footballer | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| Tanvie Hans | Footballer | F | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| I Am My Resolution – Nike Women (December 2015)
Nike Women. “I Am My Resolution” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkbzVYlVSG0 YouTube. Dec. 28. 2015. Web. |
Caucasian, African-American, Asian | “Sweat is more than perspiration. It’s an investment. Not the kind you want to save, the kind you want to give away. It has taught me perseverance. Because the more we lose, the more we learn. Sweat has taught me what it means to succeed. Sweat has taught me that I am stronger, than I think, I am made or and what I am capable of. Of getting rid of anything negative inside of you. Sweat has taught me that there are no limits. Tie your hair back, re-group, and let it drip, because you might never sweat, but you might run out of time.”
Nike marketing strategy in a nutshell. Unfortunately, names of athletes were not mentioned, betraying a lack. |
|||||||
| ‘Half-time speech’ ft. Ardan Turan – Nike Football
(June 2016) Nike Football. “Half-Time Speech’ ft. Ardan Turan” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmNB62CQiec YouTube. Jun 21 2016. Web. |
Ardan Turan | Footballer | M | Turkish | “Inspired by deep-rooted heritage, Captain Arda Turan motivates the nation of Turkey to play fearless and spark brilliance. Step into the locker room and experience Arda Turan’s half-time speech in 360º.” | ||||
| A Revolution in Motion
(April 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK2U977acCE. YouTube. Apr 7 2016. Web |
Allyson Felix | Track and field sprinter | F | African-American | All except a Caucasian white man. | ||||
| Mo Farah | Long-distance runner | M | Ethiopian, Black | ||||||
| Kyrie Irving | Basketball player | M | African-American | ||||||
| Serena Williams | Tennis player | F | African-American | ||||||
| Amari Cooper | American football player | M | African-American | ||||||
| Dafne Schippers | Helpthathlete, sprinter | F | Dutch, Caucasian | ||||||
| Su Bingtian | Track and field athlete | F | Chinese, Asian | ||||||
| Ryota Murata | Boxer | M | Japanese, Asian | ||||||
| Matthew Centrowitz | Track and field athlete | M | Bi-racial (Afro-Guyanese, Jewish/Caucasian) | ||||||
| Sammy Silva | Professional runner | F | American, Caucasian | ||||||
| Amy Cragg | Track and field athlete | F | American, Caucasian | ||||||
| PUMA | #DoYou – PUMA Women (November 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23DoYou+%E2%80%93+PUMA+Women+ YouTube. November 2016. Web. |
Anna Okuneva | Bolshoi Theater ballet dancer | F | Russian, Caucasian | “It is pointless to always try to be like your idols… Your name is your flag, hold it high and DO YOU.”
The art that inspires me the most is the art of being yourself, in a field like ballet where you get compared to others constantly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xGWhpkNcCk
|
|||
| Daria Malygina | DJ, model | F | Russian, Caucasian | “Don’t be afraid of your talents, don’t hide from yourself… DO YOU”
Break the rules and form your own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpuKszaeubY
|
|||||
| Manizha | Musician | F | Russian, Caucasian | “You can be afraid, but fear fades when you take the step… Step up and DO YOU”
I have been performing my whole life, and every time I go on stage, I am very, very nervous. You can be afraid, uncertain, nervous, you can lose, but you have to keep going forward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6C2speFWZM
|
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| Mimi Staker | New York City Ballet dancer | F | American, Caucasian | “I think the only way that people are really going to know who you are is to go out on the stage and have the confidence to show people “This is me, and I’m not afraid to be me, and I’m not intimidated to be me. I’m here, and I’m happy to be me, and I’m happy to show everyone out in the audience that this is me, this is Mimi Staker. I’m going to come out here and I’m going to do me.”” Ballet is a form of self-expression, and it is important in this art-form to really find yourself. You have to sacrifice a lot, but do not sacrifice yourself. Believe in you, do you.
If all the world is a stage, the dancers at the NYCB live it every damn second of their day. These women are constantly striving to be the best versions of themselves. You could even say that they are striving for perfection. Yet they find ways to stay true to themselves with unique motivations that – quite literally – keep them on their toes each day, pushing them to dig deep for the confidence and strength within when the going gets tough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rirme_6su0
|
|||||
| Coni Piccoli | Actor | F | Chile, Latin American | “There will always be prejudice, there will always be rumors. But always I keep being myself and happy!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJG7Ef__lpo
|
|||||
| Javiera Lazo | Athlete | F | Latin American | “I live my life as I want. Competing is more important than winning.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW7qnrzjfFU
|
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| Pamela Hernández | Fitness trainer | F | Latin American | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBtO9K0SaxM
|
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| DJ Lizz | DJ | F | Latin American | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg5gsXS_HVI
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| Michelle Carvalho | Model | F | Brazil, Latin American | “I live my life as I want, what I do is to be happy and be better every day. And I do not care what you say the rest.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beRBp3FVIog
|
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| Elisa Keitel | Athlete | F | Latin American | ||||||
| Tomasa del Real | Singer | F | Latin American | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKb3QysvdPY
|
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| Valentina Badilla | F | Latin American | Valentina Badilla does not care about stereotypes, she does what she likes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgVy0nLIddY
|
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| Anushka Manchanda | VJ | F | Indian, South-Asian | There have been several times in my life when something has happened that just turned everything around. Those are the moments that have shaped my life.” What’s important for me is the passion I feel for the work I do, not chasing fame. It’s not about proving yourself to anyone, it is about proving yourself to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O-qrioFbyM
|
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| Jacqueline Fernandez | Actor | F | Sri Lankan, South-Asian | “As far as I can remember, I’ve felt deep down that I was meant to be doing something bigger. Having grown up all around the world, I had to work hard to find what that was. The answer was never around me, it was always inside me. Find your core, find yourself.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75jk03T4ZKg
|
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| Kalki Koechlin | Actor | F | Indian, South-Asian | “When life gets overwhelming, I move to the beat of my heart, I listen to the sound of my footsteps, that’s where I find a world full of possibilities.” Learning is growing, learning is change, and learning will get you to do you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYhzMoCwEc
|
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| Lisa Haydon | Model, Actor | F | Indian, South-Asian | “You don’t have to choose who you want to be, because choosing puts you in a box. And boxes are for things, not people.”
It’s simple – put the work in for yourself, and nobody else. You’ll be surprised with the things that you can do with yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTzpqRH-9f0
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| Ujjwala Raut | Supermodel | F | Indian, South-Asian | Juggling multiple roles never fazed Ujjwala Raut, “I have always had big plans for myself and have pursued them relentlessly. After my daughter was born I realized that I had to be strong. I needed to be able to take up any challenges that were thrown at me.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ9uUHMyC3k
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| Nidhi Mohan Kamal | Fitness and Nutrition Expert | F | Indian, South-Asian | Breaking all barriers, Nidhi Mohan sounds the war cry, “Against all social norms, I walked into the gym 15 years ago in a small town in Punjab. I decided to stop at nothing. Because that’s the only way to #DoYou.” Fight the war within you and emerge victorious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0AGxUI_yjA
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| Sucheta Pal | International Zumba Education Specialist | F | Indian, South-Asian | It’s never too late to chase your dreams, says Sucheta Pal. “To find my happiness, I took the unconventional path to pursue my passion as my work. All you have to do? Just find a way to #DoYou.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOE7TJQTTKM
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| Sakshi Malik | Wrestler | F | Indian, South-Asian | Olympic medalist, Sakshi Malik, urges women not to give up on their dreams.
“Jab hum Olympics ke liye Rio gaye the, tab kisine socha bhi nahi thaa ki Sakshi Malik medal jeetegi, mera naam medal contenders main tha hi nahi. Magar mere final bout ke aakhiri 10 second mein, maine apne bhaagya ko palta or namumkin to mumkin kar dikhaya.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2fQIrqji4
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| Tashi & Nungshi | Everest Twins and Mountaineers | F | Indian, South-Asian | Tashi & Nungshi Malik are urging all women to be a part of the movement to #DoYou, “Everything we’ve done has been on the path less travelled. We didn’t pay heed to those who said we couldn’t, who said we’re just girls. True to our cores, we blazed ahead to discover ourselves.” Mountaineering is dangerous for girls, they said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To9foewggyE
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| Olivia Boisson | New York City Ballet Dancer | F | African-American | Olivia Boisson of the New York City Ballet wakes up every day and sets a goal for herself. “It’s never easy but it’s part of the greatness of being a ballet dancer. Every day you strive to get better and better and be better than yesterday, and be better than yourself.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywwrJmEdJgU
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| Nomzamo Mbatha | Actor, Model | F | South-African, African | “I think we definitely live in a time where women are taking back their identity. We’re taking back the narrative of feminism, and you know what we are saying? We saying I’m going to do me, I’m going to be who I want to be, when I want to be, wherever I want to be. I am the blue print, no copy can supersede a blue print. The only way to be you, is to Do You.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEk-DA5hQUQ
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| Cara Delevingne | Model, Actor | F | British, Caucasian | “It’s not about finding yourself. It’s good to be inspired and look up to people, but to really find out what makes you happy, no matter what that is, don’t follow the crowd. Don’t do what other people do because everyone else is doing it. If you want to go against the grain, don’t be scared to, because if that’s what makes you happy, it doesn’t matter.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srS0D3s1aAY
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| #Fight4Fairness – PUMA Heritage, Forever Faster
(November 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y30BRJt5XBo YouTube. Nov 6 2016. Web. |
Clyde Frazier | Former basketball player | M | African-American | What distinguishes champions from legends? Their will to Fight for Fairness. PUMA athletes have fought through hardships and against the odds to rise above discrimination, racism, poverty, and sexism in sports. These athletes have fought to play, and fought to rise above. In doing so, they’ve changed the game for the next generation.
Passionate athletes like Clyde Frazier, Tommie Smith, Maradona, Guillermo Vilas, and Lothar Matthaus faced the odds and fearlessly conquered them. They liberated the next generation of athletes. Mario Balotelli, Marta, Yaya Toure, Lexi Thompson, and Sergio Agüero continue to change the game and Fight for Fairness in sports.
These are just a few examples of the inspiring, game-changing athletes. We’re proud of all PUMA legends past and present, and will continue to stand with those don’t simply dominate their sports, they transcend them. |
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| Tommie Smith | Former track & field athlete | M | African-American | ||||||
| Maradona | Retired footballer | M | Argentine, Latin American | ||||||
| Guillermo Vilas | Retired tennis player | M | Argentine, Latin American | ||||||
| Lothar Matthaus | Former football player | M | German, Caucasian | ||||||
| Mario Balotelli | Football player | M | Italian, African | ||||||
| Marta | Football player | M | Brazilian, Latin American | ||||||
| Yaya Toure | Football player | M | Ivory Coast, African | ||||||
| Lexi Thompson | Professional golfer | F | American, Caucasian | ||||||
| Sergio Agüero | Football player | M | Argentine, Latin American | ||||||
| REEBOK | #FitToFight – Be More Human
(March 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyyP6IDkWbk YouTube. Mar 7, 2016. Web. |
Kangana Ranaut | Actor | F | Indian, South-Asian | In a series of dialogues, Kangana narrates of the struggles, discriminations and turmoil she had to face in order to breakthrough as a star. She was told she was not beautiful enough, a passing star, a one-expression actor, that she couldn’t carry a full-length feature film on her own – ‘but I knew, if I was fit to fight, I was fit to be more. Be more. Be more human.
In the second ad of the same campaign, the narrator asks her a series of questions in order to nail her struggle, fraught with no support from her family, lack of offers and rejection, media criticism of her ability to speak English and looks, and two National Awards. She answers in abstract terms of being focused, letting the criticism slide, and being determined. It ends with the same tagline ‘but I knew, if I was fit to fight, I was fit to be more. Be more. Be more human.’ |
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| Deepa Malik | Paralympics athlete | F | Indian, South-Asian | Winner of numerous national and international awards, and the first Indian woman to win a medal (silver) at the Paralympics, Deepa Malik narrates her life story, which began as a fairytale, with a solid marriage and loving family. Due to her injury, she was forced to recede into the background, yet it did not stop her from becoming a world-class athlete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q-boMOMo_c
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| Smriti Singhal | Co-founder, The Education Tree | F | Indian, South-Asian | Though not an athlete, Singhal admits that when you feel the need to change, you fight, be it the education system which values marks more than passion, innovation and determination, which is not true education. ‘Because I believe, we are not the marks we get, but the dreams we chase.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qRJjlpTX-4
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| Reebok 25,915 Days
(April 2016) |
F | American women of all ages, mostly white/Caucasian. | 25,915 days are the average number of days in the life of an average human, and these women beat the odds by staying fit and healthy through rigorous exercise. ‘Honour the body you have been given. Be more human.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJGh32e2Mw
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| Humans of Reebok
(August 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckFQ0NHrQg YouTUbe. Aug 15 2016. Web. |
Employees of Reebok centre at Massachusetts. | A diverse group of Americans, Caucasian, African-American, Asian-American | Unique and centered on the premise of practice what you preach, Reebok centre is shown to also be a fitness hub for the its brilliant employees, with its gymnasium, running tracks, dance halls etc. Meant to nurture its talent through the very premise that they preach – that fitness not only builds physical strength, but also mental, and leads to the overall development of a human being, showcasing a more holistic approach and mantra that guides the people who make Reebok shoe products. | ||||||
| Portrait of Greatness
(November 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bls3OJ6udDY YouTube. Nov 11 2016. Web. |
Sgt. Matthew Melancon (Ret.) | US Veteran | M | American, Caucasian | Sgt. Melancon narrates how he lost his legs due to a bomb blown off during patrol in Afghanistan. He chose to sacrifice his legs, and got prosthetics instead, so that he could walk and ‘live again’. He eventually became a motivational speaker for people with similar ailment who felt they did not have the strength, when people around them kept telling them they would never recover. But by getting prosthetic legs, and being able to work out and be fit, he is now able to live his life. He is nothing spectacular, he is just a guy, but he too had the strength to do it. ‘Not a victim, a veteran. I am a speaker, an athlete, and I hunt honour.’
‘Sgt. Matthew Melancon (Ret.) shares his story to educate, inspire and fight to change the way service men and women are depicted in the media. He is currently in training for his next goal: qualifying to represent Team USA in the Boardecross event in PyeongChang.’ ‘Hunt Greatness.’ |
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| Reebok #HonourYourDays –with five ordinary, ambitious, women who used fitness and latent inner strength after persona; tragedies/set-backs, to re-gain health and attain a stronger, more vital self-hood.
(August 2016) |
Jackie | CrossFit Trainer | F | American, Caucasian | “When Jackie first found CrossFit, she had no idea what her body was actually capable of. Now stronger and more confident, Jackie coaches CrossFit to kids in her community. She honours her body through physicality to maximize her 16,857 days to serve as an example for her family.”
“Strong is about taking care of the ones you love. This is a story of one woman bringing health and fitness together to create a better life for herself and her family.” A woman in her late 30s, Jackie and her husband had a time-consuming corporate job, leaving bare minimum time for their kids. Jackie decided to quit her job and open a gym-business of her own, to stay close to her kids and stay trained and fit. She trained in CrossFit, to find herself, and to be an example to her children and her family, and be stronger together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tin0jDaUm0U
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| Niki | Dancer | F | American, Caucasian | “The average human has around 26 thousand days in their lifetime. Niki, a dance instructor, focuses on honouring her body through physicality to find balance in her life. This is how Niki honours her 18,083 days.”
“Strong is about staying the course. This is a story of how one woman to pursue her dream of a dance career even if it meant disappointing those closest to her.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57A37Izg7Ug
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| Lina | Fitness Trainer | F | American, Caucasian | “Faced with her own mortality at an early age, group fitness instructor Lina made a promise to herself that she would be prepared for whatever life throws her way. Lina makes the most of her 17,323 days so she’s strong enough, mentally and physically, to take on any challenge.”
“Strong is about many things. It’s about finding the power to take charge of illness. This is the story of one woman who had a 20% chance of living and beat all the odds through fitness and inner strength.” Lina turned to fitness to save her life from cancer diagnosed at age of 21, and she triumphed the odds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V9qC5crmjA
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| Kim | Fitness trainer | F | American, Caucasian | “Humans have on average 26 thousand days in a lifetime. Kim, a group fitness coach and instructor honours her 14,013 days by constantly challenging herself even when no one is watching. She trains not only for today, but also for her future.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN_UHHjGV8M
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| Allison | Elite obstacle course racer | F | American, Caucasian | “Allison, an elite obstacle course racer, focuses on honouring her body through physicality day in and day out not just to win races, but in pursuit of something greater. This is how Allison honours her 18,086 days.”
“Strong is about overcoming life’s obstacles. Strong is about being ready. This is a story of strength and determination – of how one woman fought hard to come back from a nearly fatal bike accident.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA4yE28Pb5I
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| LENOVO | #PitchToHer
(August 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBdblSLLiCs YouTube. Aug 10 2015. Web. |
Young girls from Hutup, Jharkhand | Football players | F | Indian, South-Asian | As an awareness building, and charitable campaign, Lenovo, part of its Yuwa campaign, selected a group of girls from Hutup, Jharkhand, where, 6 out of 10 girls drop out of schools to be child brides. They trained them in football, and sent them to competitions around the world, in an attempt to free them of their fate. | |||
| SPORT ENGLAND | This Girl Can – I Jiggle Therefore I Am
(January 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsP0W7-tEOc YouTube. Jan 23 2015. Web. |
Women from England | F | British, Caucasian | A rebellious video against the mainstream of diet culture and body shaming, these ‘plus-size’, beautiful women ‘get their freak on’ by exercising and grinding to be healthy and their natural selves. | ||||
| INDUSIND BANK | #JeetKaHalla
(September 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5C-C9aa_kU YouTube. Sept 22 2016. Web. |
Indian Para-athletes | Indian, South-Asian | ‘Did You Know?’ – The first ever individual gold medal for India at the biggest international sporting event was won b a Para-swimmer in 1972. Indian Para-athletes and their coaches have been awarded with 3 Padma Shri, 24 Arjuna Awards, 3 Dronacharya Awards, and 2 Dhyan Chand Awards. India’s world record in Javelin Throw in Para-athletics remains unbroken even after 12 years.’
Featuring Indian Para-athletes, his moving and emotional aims to support, and applaud them, those whose efforts and achievements tend to go unnoticed. An ad more about national pride and honour, and personal valour and strength. |
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| STAR SPORTS | #BillionCheers
(August 2016) |
Dipa Karmakar | Gymnast | F | Indian, South-Asian | An ad that urges people to support gymnast Dipa Karmakar at the Olympics 2016, which she hopes to win for the honour and pride of her country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stOynJfGo40
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| TATA SALT | #NamakKeVaaste
(July 2016) |
Babita Kumari | Wrestler | F | Indian, South-Asian | An ad that urges viewers to, as true and loyal citizens of the country, support Babita Kumari and Shiva Thapa at the Olympics in 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz46wNJT72Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjRWPPv6EQ
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| Shiva Thapa | Boxer | M | Indian, South-Asian | ||||||
| ADANI GROUP | #GarvHai
(June 2016) |
An ad that wishes India the best for Rio Olympics 2016.
“Everyone cheers for the winners, for the champions, for the ones who bring glory and pride to the nation. Now, it’s time to cheer for those who are on their way to greatness. Because our pride is their victory. Let’s come together and say – #GarvHai” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oxq8aLElEk
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Ananya Tiwari 