Just Do It

Just Do It.

Just Do It (stylized as JUST DO IT.)^[1] is a trademark of shoe company Nike, and one of the core components of Nike's brand. The slogan was coined in 1988 at an advertising agency meeting. The founder of Wieden+Kennedy agency, Dan Wieden credits the inspiration for his "Just Do It" Nike slogan to Gary Gilmore’s last words: "Let's do it."^[2] The "Just Do It" campaign allowed Nike to further increase its share of the North American domestic sport-shoe business from 18% to 43%, (from $877 million to $9.2 billion in worldwide sales) from 1988 to 1998.^[3] In many Nike-related situations, "Just Do It" appears alongside the Nike logo, known as the Swoosh.

Campaign

The "Just Do It" campaign launched in 1988 was highly successful with the Age selecting the campaign as one of the top two taglines of the 20th century with it being both "universal and intensely personal". ^[4] While Reebok was directing their campaign at aerobics during the fitness craze of the 1980s, Nike responded with "a tough, take no prisoners ad campaign". One of the campaign's objectives was to target all Americans regardless of age, gender or physical fitness level which led to Nike becoming worn as a fashion statement, not just as fitness gear (Nearly 80% of Nike’s running shoes are not worn for their intended purpose). Nike’s fundamental objective was to represent sneakers as a fashion statement to consumers, especially females, teens and males aged 18–40.

Throughout the campaign, Nike enlisted numerous notable athletes in order to attract customers and promote the image of Nike as being reliable to not only everyday customers but professional athletes. Athletes such as football stars Ronaldinho and Wayne Rooney, basketball stars Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant and tennis stars Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were used in their advertisements, including a range of people from varying ethnicities and races.^[5]

Nike was faced with criticism by Ernst & Young surrounding the campaign, with the pay of elite athletes compared to those in overseas shoe factories, and for violating the minimum wage in their operations in Vietnam.^{[6] [7]}

The "Just Do It" campaign went out to a range of media outlets including merchandise, outdoor billboards, print media, and graffiti art.

The campaign embodied Nike's image as an innovative American icon associated with success through the combination of professional athletes and motivational slogans emphasizing sportsmanship and health. This led to customers associating their purchases with the prospect of achieving greatness.^[8]

In 2015, actor Shia LaBeouf used this phrase in LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner's #INTRODUCTIONS video, which later become an Internet meme.^[9]

Colin Kaepernick & Controversy

Nike's signature "Just Do It" campaign celebrated its 30th year anniversary on September 5th, 2018 with the release of their video titled, "Nike - Dream Crazy". This short video follows in the trend of Nike partnering up with famous or trending athletes and features numerous household named sports figures such as LeBron James, Serena Williams, and Colin Kaepernick, an American football quarterback. After opting out of his contract with the San Francisco, he has since then, been a free agent and not signed by any NFL team. His involvement with the advertisement, especially after the context of the controversial act of kneeling during the National Anthem in 2016, gave rise to a whole entire internet debate and social movement against Nike^[10]. Many individuals took to Twitter and other social media sites to revolt, adopting the hashtag, #JustDon't or #BoycottNike^[11]. Many prior fans of Nike have also showed signs of protest by explicitly demanding that others boycott or even go as far to burn Nike shoes or destroy various other merchandise. Nevertheless, many analysts suggested that the campaign was successful, as the target group of the advertisment has endorsed it^[12].

Colin Kaepernick is the face of the company’s new “Just Do It” campaign. Within moments of the announcement, the same controversy that Kaepernick sparked two years ago when he began kneeling during the national anthem began to play out all over again. https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818162/nike-kaepernick-controversy-face-of-just-do-it . But it almost didn’t happen. In the summer of 2017, a debate raged in Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., over whether to cut loose the controversial, unemployed quarterback — and the company very nearly did, according to two individuals with knowledge of the discussions who requested anonymity because of nondisclosure agreements each has with Nike^[13].

References