Is Nike attracting their customers in a smart way?
Nike is an American multinational corporation founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil
Knight in 1964. Nike is very well-known and has a high reputation in the sports
industry. Just do it? Everyone can do it, but what Nike have to offer that other sports
brands don’t? I will be discussing the use of Ethos and Pathos as rhetorical devices
in Nike’s advertisement (“Dream Crazy, 2018”).
According to The Guardian “A Nike advert starring!Colin Kaepernick has won the
award for outstanding commercial at the Creative Arts Emmys.” (“Nike’s ‘Dream
Crazy’”, 2019).
In the first place, Nike uses Ethos in their advertisement by definition, “The character
or reputation of a rhetor” (Crowley & Hawhee, 2012, p. 352). By having famous
characters in their advertisement such as Colin Kaepernick who is a famous
American civil rights activist and football quarterback, as well as Serena Williams
who is an American professional tennis player and former world No. 1 women’s
single tennis, So Nike used those characters as way to attract people thus these
characters have a huge audience, also they inspire young people and many people
may see them as their role models, so in my opinion it is a clever way by Nike to
attract the audience that likes those famous characters by having them in the
advertisement.
In addition to that, Nike used Pathos as well in their advertisement by definition
“Greek term for emotions or passions” (Crowley & Hawhee, 2012, p. 354). When
they said “Don’t try to be the fastest runner in your school or in the world, be the
fastest everywhere”, “Lose 120 pounds and be an iron man after being in a brain
tumor”, “Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything”, “When they
talk about the greatest team in the history of sports make sure it’s your team”, “Don’t
believe you have to be like anybody to be somebody”, and “If you have only one
hand don’t just watch football, play at the highest level”, these phrases were used in
the advertisement to make the advert more heart-touching and inspirational to the
viewers which in my opinion was a smart way to attract the audience as what has
been mentioned in the advert pushes the people to dream bigger and bigger and
make them assume that buying from Nike will help them reach their ambitions. Also,
they mentioned at the end of the advertisement the phrase “Its only crazy until you
do it. Just Do It. This phrase rereminds the viewer and bring its focus back to the
main idea of the advert which is promoting Nike by mentioning “Just Do It” which is
Nike’s slogan.
On the other hand, Nike’s advertisement would have been better if it was shorter,
thus having a long advertisement may not deliver the message wanted to the
audience because the concentration on the advert may be lost throughout the
advertisement, adding to that Nike tries to portrait this perfect image of this perfect
athletic wear company in their advert when in fact they’re violating and abusing basic
human rights in work conditions which may cause controversy by the audience and
this leads to customers not trusting the adverts they produce anymore. (“Does Nike
use sweatshops to this day?”, “McKay”, 2019).
