Yankee fans infatuated with (maybe) Nike ad
In the afterglow of their team's World Series victory, fans of the New York Yankees have been passing around what looks like a Nike ad, listing 15 reasons why the Yankees make their otherwise apparently quite shitty big-city lives bearable. The ad, with an image of Mariano Rivera, is done in the same style as some Nike Sportswear posters seen around NYC during the playoffs, though it's unclear if it's an official Nike creation. There's an apostrophe missing, for one thing. But Yankee fans will forgive just about anything these days. Says one: "I think they're just ignoring punctuation marks altogether for aesthetic purposes." —Posted by Tim Nudd Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 12, 2009 | Permalink
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Jordan's son to wear Nikes on Adidas team
Michael Jordan's son Marcus, a freshman guard at the University of Central Florida, wants to wear his dad's Nike Air Jordan sneakers. In Chemistry 101, that's probably fine. On the court, however, it's a problem, as Adidas has a six-year, $3 million contract with the university to outfit its athletes across all of its sports. "It's a level of importance with the Jordan Brand and my family," the player says. "It's no disrespect to Adidas. I have a high level of respect for adidas, but I'm going to be wearing Jordan shoes. I'm wearing the Adidas uniform and all my other UCF gear is Adidas, but the shoes are going to be Jordan Brand." According to the Associated Press, the university is working with Adidas to determine "how this unique set of circumstances will work for both parties." Given the inordinate amount of free publicity the "controversy" is generating for both brands, I'd say those circumstances are working just fine so far. UPDATE: It looks like Adidas is pulling its $3 million from UCF over the sneaker flap. Maybe Mike Sr. will step up to the line and foot the bill. If the school offers to rename its athletic center after MJ, the surly egomaniac might even be a sport and pony up $3 million per foot. Well, not Pony exactly... —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 26, 2009 | Permalink
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Does Adidas not care about Melanie Oudin?
Melanie Oudin's success at the U.S. Open appears to have taken even her sponsor, Adidas, by surprise. The unheralded young American, who has reached the quarterfinals by defeating three highly ranked Russians in a row, has been getting extra attention for her funky yellow-and-pink Adidas sneakers, which she customized herself at the Mi Adidas site. It's a marketer's dream—she even put the word "Believe" on the shoe, where lesser mortals would have just put their name. But Adidas doesn't seem to be doing much to capitalize. The Mi Adidas homepage still shows Sam Querrey, the other young American whom Adidas invited to wear customized shoes for this Open. He lost on Saturday. (Oudin does front the women's section of the site, and the yellow-and-pink model is the default, so that's a start.) Meanwhile, over at the main Adidas Tennis site, there's no sign of Oudin at all. The focus there is on Ana Ivanovic, Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki. Ivanovic and Safina both crashed out of the tournament already. Wozniacki, from Denmark, will play Oudin in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, and will be public enemy No. 1 for a day in New York. Sure, Oudin's success could be fleeting—all the more reason to move quickly. Adidas needs to step it up, or someone else might swoop in. As you can see below, it's awfully easy to whip up a quick Nike ad. UPDATE: An Adidas rep e-mailed. She says the Mi Adidas site was "in the process of being updated as you were posting." And indeed, Oudin is now on the homepage. —Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on September 8, 2009 | Permalink
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Nike and Wieden pay tribute to '90s hip-hop
Back in the '90s, it seemed like pro athletes were lining up for the chance to put out terrible rap albums. Now, Nike and Wieden + Kennedy revisit those days with four NBA stars who are just as bad on the mike—but at least seem to realize it. "Don't Criticize (Hyperize)" is a bizarre and endearingly subtle parody of '90s hip-hop featuring Rashard "Ice-O" Lewis, Andre "Chief Blocka" Iguodala, Kevin "Velvet Hoop" Durant and the always awesome Mo Williams, who claims one of the best rap pseudonyms ever with "Fog Raw." At first blush, the song is pretty painful, but it's worth a few watches just to catch the endless references to decade-old fads. And for Lewis's top-notch lyric, "If you like staying on the ground, maybe you should wrestle." See also: |
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Published on August 11, 2009 | Permalink
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Ice Cube and skateboarding, together at lastWhen Ice Cube has a good day, it involves a lot of drugs, sex, gambling and basketball. When professional skateboarder Paul Rodriguez has a good day, he apparently just rides around town doing fancy tricks. You can tell whose day is supreme at the end of this new spot for Nike Skateboarding, which is promoting Rodriguez's third shoe design. An extended version of the video is set to debut on Nike's site at the end of this month. In the longer version, it may be harder to tell if Rodriguez truly had a good day, but thankfully we have this handy flowchart to help us figure it out. |
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Published on July 20, 2009 | Permalink
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Wieden's Neil Christie smells another rip-off
Neil Christie, managing director of Wieden + Kennedy in London, is a hawk for any advertising that resembles anything his agency has done. Nine months ago, he dug up a Singapore ad that had a bread-making sequence he found eerily similar to some food porn that Wieden did in the Middle East. Needless to say, many dismissed Christie as a crank. He's undeterred. Today, he's putting the ripoff label on a print ad for Sure deodorant that shows a cricket player pointing his bat at the viewer with the tagline, "Not without a fight." As it happens, Wieden used the same line a year ago in a Nike ad featuring English rugby players looking rather menacing on the cliffs of Dover. It's anybody's guess whether the Unilever brand knowingly ripped off Wieden or some creatives simply subconsciously absorbed the image and message (that is the point of advertising, yes?). But Christie does seem to have a better case this time around. |
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Published on July 16, 2009 | Permalink
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Sports stars line up to be Federer's fanboysNike has gotten pretty good at the quick-turnaround ads for major sports events, the most recent of which was Roger Federer's record-breaking 15th Grand Slam win this weekend. The charming homage shown above features an athletic A-list that only Nike could muster: Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, John McEnroe, Serena Williams and, of course, the dethroned-but-deferential Pete Sampras. I'm guessing that Andy Roddick would have been happy to make an appearance too, if he hadn't been busy fending off Federer in a showdown that lasted longer than a Francis Ford Coppola movie. —Posted by David Griner |
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Published on July 6, 2009 | Permalink
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Robots: Switch them on, and they just do it
Big Lazy Robot Visual Effects created this "spec commercial inspired by Nike." Whatever that means. I guess nobody's got paying clients these days. Now, I'm no fan of robots, but this is one impressive vignette. It subverts expectations by using a mechanical subject and lifeless cement-and-steel cityscape to vividly communicate pursuits of the human spirit, or at least the robot spirit, like pushing oneself to new heights, smashing limitations and being in total sync with the environment. Or running on all circuits. There's no need for this sprinter to chug Gatorade at the end of his gravity-defying run. That would just burn out his transistors, anyway. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on July 2, 2009 | Permalink
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Dwight Howard sick of the Kobe/LeBron ads
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James's new NBA playoff-themed ads for Nike (above) and Vitaminwater (below) have sparked a lot of excitement—particularly from Dwight Howard. But not in a good way. In a post on his blog, the Orlando Magic star says it's "really disrespectful that everybody seems to be pulling for LeBron and Kobe to get to the finals. ... It's like nobody is even giving us a shot at winning this series." He signs off by saying, "Aiiight, ya'll I guess I gotta go watch another one of these LeBron and Kobe commercials on TV. Naw, just kiddin." Dwight's got a point, but he should really pay more attention to where his elbows land than who's in what ad. That's the best way to make sure you're in next year's campaign. |
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Published on May 26, 2009 | Permalink
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Tiger Woods learns to focus in Gatorade ad
Here's the first ad in the new "Woods of Wisdom" campaign for Gatorade Tiger from TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles. The animated spot promotes the reformulated Gatorade Tiger Focus drink (which now contains theanine, which aids in concentration) and shows Woods as a kid learning to keep his mind from wandering on the links. He does this with the help of a wise old grizzly bear (who looks and sounds a lot like Woods' late father Earl) and a literal waterfall of Tiger Focus, which the boy eagerly slurps up. Samuel L. Jackson is among the voice talent for the campaign, and funk master Bootsy Collins did the original music. This first spot also has a heavy Nike flavor, as Woods and the bear both sport Nike logos on their caps, and Tiger does the hacky-sack thing with the golf ball at the end—the same trick he made famous in the legendary 1999 Nike commercial. |
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Published on April 9, 2009 | Permalink
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Party's over as Tiger Woods returns to golf
When Tiger's away, the mice will play—and actually win, for a change. This amusing new Nike Golf spot from Wieden + Kennedy shows Anthony Kim, Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman, Justin Leonard and Carl Pettersson having the time of their lives while Woods recovers from knee surgery. Of course, all good things come to an end—in this case, it's because Tiger has healed and will return to the PGA Tour on Wednesday for the Accenture Match Play Championship. The 60-second spot breaks on Wednesday and will air on ESPN, ESPN News and The Golf Channel until Sunday. The Golf Channel will air it right before Tiger's first tee shot on Wednesday. |
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Published on February 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Jimmy Rollins pounded by balls for Dick'sPhillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins gives an amusing performance in this Wieden + Kennedy co-op spot for Nike and Dick's Sporting Goods. Rollins flinches ever so slightly and grunts in quasi-orgasmic fashion as baseballs shot from a pitching machine careen off his body. The message: in sports, performance and pain are intrinsically linked. Fantasy baseball owners know it's true. Especially those of us who drafted JR in the first round for $40, only to see him spend April on the disabled list and hit just .277 for the year. Aww, does your widdle spwained ankle hurt, Jimmy? Suck it up this season! Who feels my pain when the dweebs in accounting finish first and win all my hard-earned pay? |
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Published on February 19, 2009 | Permalink
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Nike sets a collision course for its NFL stars
David Fincher directed this epic new Nike commercial, titled "Fate," in which NFL players LaDainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu are literally born to pummel each other in a football game. Polamalu, it seems, has had long hair since his days in the womb. Wieden, Nike and Fincher have teamed up before, of course, notably on the Nike Gridiron stuff from 2003. |
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Published on October 14, 2008 | Permalink
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Bickering body parts come alive in Nike ad
Wieden + Kennedy goes inside the body of Nicola Sanders in this crazy new Nike commercial to reveal her muscles and organs in various states of Internal Pigdog-esque agony during a workout. The brain, outfitted with a monocle, tries to keep the screaming legs, a whiny multicolored heart, a pair of resentful lungs and a couple of bitter feet all working as one. One thing the body parts have in common: big lipsticked lips. —Posted by Tim Nudd |
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Published on September 16, 2008 | Permalink
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