Nike Ads Quotes

Okay, that was, I have to say, about the cheesiest thing I ever heard in my life,” I say to Angela as we’re milling around afterward. We hug, so Billy can take our picture. “I mean, seriously. Just be? You should write ads for Nike.

When I pointed out this fallacy in her thought process, however, all she said was, “Just do it,” only not the way they say it in Nike ads. She said it the way the Wicked Witch of the West said it to the winged monkeys when she sent them out to kill Dorothy and her little dog, too.

Michael Jordan, the basketball great, is a case in point. In a famous Nike commercial, he said: ‘I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.’ For many the ad was perplexing. Why boast about your mistakes? But to Jordan it made perfect sense. ‘Mental toughness and heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have,’ he said. ‘I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that.’ James

the fact is, our relationships to these corporations are not unambiguous. some memebers of negativland genuinely liked pepsi products. mca grew up loving star wars and didn't mind having his work sent all over the united states to all the "cool, underground magazines" they were marketing to--why would he? sam gould had a spiritual moment in the shower listening to a cd created, according to sophie wong, so that he would talk about tylenol with his independent artist friends--and he did. many of my friends' daughters will be getting american girl dolls and books as gifts well into the foreseeable future. some skateboarders in washington, dc, were asked to create an ad campaign for the east coast summer tour, and they all love minor threat--why not use its famous album cover? how about shilling for converse? i would have been happy to ten years ago. so what's really changed? the answer is that two important things have changed: who is ultimately accountable for veiled corporate campaigns that occasionally strive to obsfucate their sponsorship and who is requesting our participation in such campaigns. behind converse and nike sb is nike, a company that uses shit-poor labor policies and predatory marketing that effectively glosses over their shit-poor labor policies, even to an audience that used to know better. behind team ouch! was an underground-savvy brainreservist on the payroll of big pharma; behind the recent wave of street art in hip urban areas near you was omd worldwide on behalf of sony; behind your cool hand-stenciled vader shirt was lucasfilm; and behind a recent cool crafting event was toyota. no matter how you participated in these events, whether as a contributor, cultural producer, viewer, or even critic, these are the companies that profited from your attention.

The front door of the BMW opened, and a man slid out from the driver’s seat. Elijah recognised him immediately. Risky Bizness was tall and slender, a good deal over six feet, his already impressive height accentuated by an unruly afro that added another three or four inches. His face was striking rather than handsome: his nose was crooked, his forehead a little too large, his skin marked with acne scars. His eyebrows, straight and manicured, sat above cold and impenetrable black eyes. He was wearing a thin designer windcheater, black fingerless gloves, and his white Nike hi-tops were pristine. He wore two chunky gold rings on his fingers, diamond earrings through the lobes of both ears, and a heavy gold chain swung low around his neck.

103. Magic Mantras and Latex Poodles My father has the irritating habit of saying the same thing whenever something bad happens. “This, too, shall pass,” he says. What annoys me is that he’s always right about it. What annoys me even more is that he always reminds me later when it does pass, as a smug “I told you so.” He doesn’t say it to me anymore because Mom told him it was trite. Maybe it is, but I find that I say it to myself now. No matter how bad I’m feeling, I make myself say it, even if I’m not ready to believe it. This, too, shall pass. It’s amazing how little things like that can make a big difference. It’s like that old Nike ad. “Just do it.” My mom likes to tell the story about how she had gained so much weight when Mackenzie was born, and exercise was so daunting, she didn’t know where to begin, so she just ate and got fatter. Finally she started telling herself “Just do it,” and it was the magic mantra to get her exercising regularly again. She dropped the weight before Mackenzie turned two. On the other hand, there was this bizarre cult that committed mass suicide wearing brand-new Nikes as their own warped homage to “Just do it.” I suppose even a simple slogan can be twisted into whatever shape we want, like a balloon animal—we can even make it loop back around on itself, becoming a noose. In the end, the measure of who we are can be seen in the shapes of our balloon animals.

Michael Jordan embraced his failures. In fact, in one of his favorite ads for Nike, he says: “I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed.” You can be sure that each time, he went back and practiced the shot a hundred times.

Sooner or later the serious runner goes through a special, very personal experience that is unknown to most people. Others say it’s a new kind of mystical experience that propels you into an elevated sense of consciousness. A flash of joy. A sense of floating as you run. The experience is unique to each of us but when it happens you break through a barrier that separates you from casual runners. Forever. And from that point on, there is no finish line. You run for your life. You begin to be addicted to what running gives you.

Following a model popularized by Nike, American corporations increasingly hived off the production and distribution of their goods and services to focus on the higher value-added tasks of design and marketing. Surprisingly few goods are actually produced by the company whose brand is on the label, from iPhones to cat food to blood thinner. The result has been disastrous for American employment, even in “high-growth” industries such as electronics. It has also resulted in a conundrum about “corporate responsibility,” as supply chains are increasingly dispersed around the world and illegible even to the companies owning the brand. Few sectors are immune, whether in manufacturing or service.

But, as Savan observes in her classic book The Sponsored Life, as a defense against the power of advertising, irony is a leaky condom-in fact, it's the same old condom that advertising brings over every night. A lot of ads have learned that to break through to the all-important boomer and Xer markets they have to be as cool, hip, and ironic as the target audience like to think of itself as being. That requires at least the pose of opposition to commercial values. The cool commercials-I'm thinking of Nike spots, some Reebooks, most 501s, certainly all MTV promos-flatter us by saying we're too cool to fall for commercial values, and therefore cool enough to want their product.52