Winning Isn’t Comfortable : The Nike Ad Campaign Progression

It was just about a month ago that Nike was facing a lot of flak from netizens about its “AM I BAD” advert for the olympics. Yes, the ad was really bad. It was in bad taste and completely away from the spirit of the olympics, from the spirit of sports itself. 

It looks like Nike is out to make amends and salvage the situation by changing the tone of their communication albeit maintaining the same campaign messaging theme: Winning. Before, they were saying, “Winning isn’t for Everyone” and now they are saying, “Winning isn’t comfortable”. 

They have switched the focus gradually from athletes doing all it takes to win, even if it means being vicious, ruthless and merciless, to saying that it takes a lot of effort, a lot of hard work to win.

Just today (20 hours ago as I type this blog), they launched 3 ads (including the one I posted above), each of them ending with the message “Winning Isn’t Comfortable”

Here’s a link to the other 2 ads titled: “Morning” and “Joy“.

Although there these 3 adverts are probably not even half as good the best ones Nike has done ever before in terms of storytelling or in terms of production quality, I think it is for the better. The tone adopted by Nike during the olympics and paralympics tended to alienate the common folks, to discourage people from trying and keeping sports reserved only for the elite. But now, the messaging seems to take a softer tone and conveys that winning isn’t easy and comfortable. 

For most people this makes more sense. I believe the brand always stood for inspiring people to push their limits to achieve greatness. The new messaging is more akin to the original concepts that Nike is known for. 

A double thumbs up to the creative team for this campaign progression. I believe among the myriad of things they need to do to rebuild, there are 2 things that the brand needs to work on: 

1.  Focus on maintaining brand equity by coming up with narratives that connect with the consumers

2. Rebuilding its distribution channels. Personally I believe Nike has lost out to 90% of the shoes I have purchased in the last 2 years due to non-availability of the right SKUs. After talking to multiple runners like myself, I know for a fact that people are opting for other brands which have newer and more accessible options.

If they can sort these 2 things out, then Nike will probably be back on track. 

Otherwise, for a great brand like Nike which stands testimony to the importance of brand building to become successful, a disgraceful end would be truly tragic.