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Am I a bad person?
No, Nike — you’re just a brand in the wrong place, with the wrong voice at the wrong time
Much knicker-wrangling has eventuated from Nike’s latest big name/ big money brand campaign for the Olympics.
A host of their stable of utterly awesome sporting superstars are seen grimacing as they attempt to prove that, as the bold endline states:-
“Winning Isn’t For Everyone”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwLergHG81c
Serena Williams, LeBron James, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo, A’ja Wilson — they even bring the late, great Kobe Bryant back from the grave to hammer home their message that some athletes — notably Nike sponsored ones — have it, whilst the majority don’t.
The crux here is that it’s the right message at the wrong time. In the upper echelons of elite sport, of course you have to be ruthless — it’s a frickin war, man. But when you take Willem Dafoe’s gnarly voiceover script and overlay it onto the Olympic Values, some quite serious cracks start to appear:-
According to the IOC, its three values are excellence, respect and friendship. These are the bedrocks onto which the Olympic movement promotes sport, culture and education with the ultimate objective of building a better world.
