Episode 171 - Nike Ad Reviewed by Virgin Media O2 and SKF

Are you a runner? What makes you lace up your trainers in the early morning or after work, in the rain, or through bad weather? And if you’re not a runner, would Nike’s new ad, “Winning Isn’t Comfortable” motivate you to start?

On this week’s Advertisers Watching Ads, we talk about grit, authenticity, and continuity in brand discourse from Nike, courtesy of the ad chosen for us by Contagious. Tune in to listen to our guests Marie Feliho (Director of Customer Experience at Virgin Media O2), Tony Holdway (Digital and Marketing Consultant), and Jens-Linus Lundgren-Widén (Head of Social Media at SKF Group) and decide: how effective is this creative and how much has it made you go for a jog in the pouring rain?

 

Episode 171 - Nike Ad Reviewed by Virgin Media O2 and SKF

Transcript

This is automatically generated, so it’s not 100% accurate.

Tom Ollerton 0:00

Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, the creative effectiveness adtech platform, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands’ ads.

We are brought to you, as ever by our partners, Contagious, who helped choose the ad this week, but before we get to that ad, let's meet this week's guests.

Marie Feliho 0:43

I'm Marie Feliho, I’m Customer Marketing Director, leading customer experience and customer engagement strategies, across many global and British brands, such as Just Eats, Virgin Media O2, travel industry, etc...

Tony Holdway 1:00

I'm Tony Holdway, I'm a Digital and Marketing Consultant and was previously CMO at brands like Domino's, Samsung, Pret A Manger, Wickes, etc...

Linus Lundgren-Widén 1:10

Hi, my name is Linus Lundgren-Widén. I'm Head of Social Media at SKF, a B2B business.

Tom Ollerton 1:16

What a brilliantly mixed panel! I'm very much looking forward to this episode. Right... Let's see this week's ad.

On a scale of one to five, how good do you think this ad is? A one, two, three... Fingers in the air.

Linus Lundgren-Widén 2:02

Can you see them?

Tom Ollerton 2:03

Wow! Wow, Nike! You've... You have done well. Surely going to put them in the near top of the table. Right, Marie, what's the wider context of this ad? What are we watching here?

Marie Feliho 2:13

This Nike's ad is, is one that's quite recent and continues to follow Nike's attempts at coming back stronger and getting some edge, at staying in people's mind, particularly after the last few years of brand void and, and rather poor financial performance. You can really see they're trying to reclaim some, some space in consumers' hearts, and it seems to be a bit of a follow up to their very strong and hard hitting, “Winning Isn't For Everyone.” ad that they launched, just before the Olympics started and throughout the Olympics. So this one's sort of taking a, a slightly different, a slightly different approach.

Tom Ollerton 2:54

But do you see this as them carving a new space for themselves? Nike has always took the position of just doing it, right? It's not about winning a gold medal. They supported the grit and the challenge and the struggle, right? That was always their position. Do you feel that they're returning to that or is this or is this a new version of that?

Tony Holdway 3:10

This is gritty though, isn't it? This is trying to be more real and authentic. This is about saying common man or woman in the street can do this, and can win, but you got to put the effort in. I suppose that's the new element, isn't it? Hasn't the underlying feeling been for years that if you just wear Nike gear, you're going to perform and, you know, simply put this stuff on and you're going to be fine, whereas this is actually saying you're going to have to put the work in, isn’t it? So maybe that's the new element.

Linus Lundgren-Widén 3:36

It's kind of like saying they're rebranding themselves as Nike, right? Almost going back to the roots. A lot of the competition nowadays are positioning kind of running as a joyful and fun experience, which most runners know it's not. In this ad, Nike is kind of like, truthfully saying that running is painful and requires commitment. It's kind of cutting through the proverbial crap, so to speak. This is something I can be part of. I mean, when I'm running, I'm not really competing with anyone but myself. I mean, in order to run, I just need to put my shoes on, right? I mean, I haven't been running for two years, but this almost made me want to go out and run. The way they are appealing to what I see as the kind of true target audience here is... They’re doing kind of like almost segmentation through the content. So they're not trying to talk to everyone. They're trying to talk to people in the know, right? The people that are actually out there running. They know that it's painful to run. If they won't sell shoes to this, which I think they will, they will still come off as genuine, which is, you know, no small feat, pun intended, for such a kind of behemoth of a sports brand. So I think it's, step in the right direction.

Tom Ollerton 4:41

I run most days... I hate running. Like, for me, I don't think it really speaks to me because running as much as possible isn't about the pain. It's about the comfort. You're trying to maximize the comfort, right? That's how you spend, like plus £100 on a pair of squishy trainers so it doesn't hurt. You want to run at the time where the weather is going to be least bad, and you wanna listen to a playlist that makes it, makes you forget you're doing it, do you know what I mean? Whereas, I wonder if this is aimed at people who don't run. And it's, it’s kind of like struggle porn, you know, it's like, “Oh, isn't life so hard?” And it's gritty and it's a bit like cinematic and like, you know, but in reality...

Marie Feliho 5:16

I don't know, I can't imagine, I can't imagine anybody is going to feel like running after seeing this.

Tom Ollerton 5:22

But Linus did!

Marie Feliho 5:25

I mean, apart from Linus, but yeah, I mean, I feel like an edge case, but if I take a step back, I'm thinking about the competition right now, right? You, you know, you've got, you've got brands like Hoka who are... who have taken a big share of the market after these guys have sort of left the, left shops, and, you know, were focusing more on the, on their digital, digital offering. And Hoka is now the cool brand, the right brand to go for when you're running rather than focusing on the, on the technology of the, of the shoe. It's like that they’re clearly choosing to position themselves on the, the emotional aspect. And again, the great and the heart shape of like, you know, “We’re with you.”

Tony Holdway 6:08

I think if you weren't a runner, I'm not sure you'd start because of this ad. If you are a runner, then you'd embrace it more and think, “Oh, yeah, that's what I go through and that's why I go through it.” Looking at the July ad, which was “Winning Isn't For Everyone,” which glorified winning and glorified it with professional sports people. I wonder whether the consumer research after that said, “People looked to that ad and thought, ‘You know, that's not me. That can't be me. I can't be that good.’” You know, almost alienated the mass audience that they wanted. Whereas this, this is at least playing to that everyday audience, isn't it?

Marie Feliho 6:41

I think it's a bit of a continuity with that saying, “Winning Isn't For Everyone.” And then with that one which is “Running Isn't Comfortable." So they seem to be holding on the negative, sort of less positive aspect of what it is to get to go through that. So it feels like the narrative starts with like, you know, we're all about winning, about performance, etc. but we're also there for the day to day people going through the toughness of, doing exercise, of running in this, in this space. I really think there's something there around the, the running market because they would have lost those to market share.

Tom Ollerton 7:11

What I think this is and what it does quite cleverly, is it shows a emotional value associated with the brand that everyone can agree on. There's one argument that you shouldn't ever do personalized ads, because then if everyone gets their... Imagine a world, everyone gets their own personalized ad, there will be no collective view on what that brand represented. Whereas if you just have one massive thing that everyone sees, obviously you can argue both sides, but if everyone sees this, which I'm sure the media spend will make sure that's almost certain it happens within the demographic...

Tony Holdway 7:44

Yeah.

Tom Ollerton 7:44

If everyone agrees that Nike is the brand that if you wear it, you're the kind of person that goes through pain, right? It's not about colourful, sexy running over mountains. It's not about elite sports... Them being the brand for grit. So when you wear Nike, you're saying, I'm a person that goes through grit and that's its genius, I think.

Linus Lundgren-Widén 8:03

They had a bit of an identity crisis the past year when it almost positioned itself as a lifestyle brand, you know, dropping like a new types of models, like almost on a weekly basis. And that turned out not to be so profitable for them in the long run. So I think this is a way of kind of trying to go back to what they were once, and really show that to everyone. So show it to the stockholders, show it to the audience, and show it to the consumers.

Tom Ollerton 8:31

And what do you, what do you guys think about how dark it is? Like almost, it's either like early morning.

Tony Holdway 8:37

Yeah.

Tom Ollerton 8:38

Or sort of nighttime, isn't it? It's that kind of like that nether region, just after you get out and before you have to go to work, like everything's really black.

Tony Holdway 8:45

Yeah.

Tom Ollerton 8:46

Really dark. You can't see... You can't really see the products. Like the shoes are buried in mud or in water. It's a bit walking dead, isn't it? Sort of grim.

Tony Holdway 8:54

It's purposeful, isn't it? And I actually really like that element because that makes it more authentic and real. I really, really like the soundtrack, and I don't mean necessarily musically. I mean, I really like the tone of it. It's pared back. It's not showy or flashy. There's that irony in “You Are My Sunshine,” you know, that links to what you've just said, Tom, about the darkness of the background. I think that element’s really clever.

Linus Lundgren-Widén 9:16

Yeah, I guess it says more about me, but I didn't even think of that because that's how it looks outside my window, nine out of 12 months. This is just running and maybe, as I said earlier, maybe that's why I...

Tom Ollerton 9:30

Yeah, yeah.

Linus Lundgren-Widén 9:31

I agree with that because that's just how my life looks.

Tom Ollerton 9:34

Would you sign off this campaign in its entirety, yes or no? One, two, three... Thumbs up or down?

Tony Holdway 9:42

Yes.

Tom Ollerton 9:45

Oh, interesting. Right, Linus, Tony, Marie, thank you so much for your time.

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