Nike's "Just Do It" Turns 25

Twenty-five years ago, Nike unveiled one of the greatest tag line's in advertising history: "Just Do It".

Dan Wieden, the co-founder of Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency, coined "Just Do It" for a 1988 Nike ad campaign. Wieden evidently received his inspiration for "Just Do It" from Gary Gilmore, a convicted murder, who uttered "Let's do it" as his last words before he was executed.

Nike's first "Just Do It" advertisement debuted on July 1, 1988 featuring a then 80 year old runner named Walt Stack who had reached iconic stature in the running community at that time for having run over 60,000 miles over the course of his lifetime.

Now, Nike is celebrating the tag line's twenty-fifth birthday with the release of an new inspirational commercial, narrated by Bradley Copper and featuring Serena Williams and Lebron James.



"Just Do It" is still as amazing, relevant and powerful tag line today as it was 25 years ago.  

Nike's New Ad - Tiger Woods vs. Roy McIlroy

Nike just launched a great new tv commercial (Nike Golf: No Cup Is Safe) staring Tiger Woods vs. Roy McIlroy. Take a look. . .



Call it the new take on the old Larry Bird vs. Michael Jordan McDonald's commercials . . .



Call it a passing of the torch, call it whatever you want.  It may not be the most original advertising idea, but it's simple a great tv ad and breaths life back into Nike Golf. 

Who are the Olympic Advertisers and Sponsors again?

A new consumer study completed by Toluna Global Omnibus illustrates that consumer awareness and recall of what companies are Olympic sponsors and advertisers is surprisingly low.  The graph below illustrates the brand recall by company (unclear if this is aided or unaided awareness):

There are two notable take-aways from the data above.

1. 5 of the top 16 companies (including 2 of the top 5) got credit for being a sponsor without actually spending a dime on Olympic advertising
2. Even Coca-Cola, the brand with the most recall, has shockingly low awareness of sponsorship, with less than 50% of consumers aware of the linkage to the Olympics, and 28% of consumers crediting their ads back to primary rival Pepsi

These data points bring two thoughts to mind, first the investment in sponsorship doesn't seem to equate to a considerable amount of revenue upside.  Second, brands are really doing a bad job of differentiating their advertisements and breaking through to drive recall.  

I posted a few days ago about how many Olympic ads all seem to blend together, so check that post out if you haven't and watch the three example ads in that post.