Serena Williams narrates a Nike commercial launched during the 2019 Oscars and aimed at celebrating ‘crazy’ female athletes.
Nike’s ‘Dream Crazier’ showcases the sportswear behemoth’s perspective on female athletes in a follow-up to its ongoing ‘Dream Crazy’ initiative (which launched last year to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the brand’s legendary ‘Just Do It’ tagline with a controversial ad featuring and narrated by Colin Kaepernick).
The film, which debuted during the 2019 Academy Awards telecast, shines a spotlight on women athletes who have broken barriers, brought people together and inspired the next generation through sport.
Tennis mega star Williams narrates the 90-second commercial with a script that sets out to redefine the term ‘crazy’ (one that is sometimes applied negatively to women in sport) and address/reverse the head-shaking dismissiveness female athletes regularly endure
The campaign calls out the misogynistic language so often used about female athletes: such as the terms ‘dramatic’, ‘unhinged’, ‘delusional’ and ‘irrational’.
Ad copy includes lines such as “If we show emotion, we’re called dramatic”, “If we want to play against men, we’re nuts” and “When we stand for something, we’re unhinged”, before closing with the end line “Show them what crazy can do.”
As well was Williams, other stars from Nike’s athlete ambassador stable appearing in the ad include Simone Biles, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Chloe Kim and members of the US women’s soccer team.
Supporting the central hero commercial, the campaign continued with additional short films focusing on the individual Nike athlete ambassadors featured in the launch spot – such as boxer Chantel Navarro.
The work was developed by long-time Nike creative agency Wieden & Kennedy Portland by a team led by creatives Emma Barnett and Alex Romans, while the spot was helmed by Kim Gehrig through Somesuch.
Comment:
This is a powerful, female athlete specific follow-up to the brand’s ongoing ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign which was launched in September 2018 with the already iconic Colin Kaepernick narrated spot (see case study).
‘Dream Crazier’ comes on the heels of quite different kind of crazy and challenging week for Nike marketers and PR representatives which was labelled by some on social media and even Sports Illustrated as ‘Just Blew It’.
This refers to an event at the start of the high profile NCAA basketball game between Duke and North Carolina in which Zion Williams (the USA’s top ranked college baller) fell on the court and injured himself when his Nike PG 2.5 shoe ripped apart live on television.
Following repeated media coverage of the shoe malfunction and the athlete’s injury, Nike responded with a brief statement saying ‘We are obviously concerned and want to wish Zion a speedy recovery’, that it was an ‘isolated incident’ and that the brand was ‘working to identify the issue’.
The Wieden & Kennedy commercial, which notched up more than 6m views on YouTube in its first 72 hours, even has links to historical themes about male/female power, suffrage and language – at least according to a New York Times comment piece featuring Princeton University feminist scholar and professor emerita of English Elaine Showalter.
The piece points out that labelling women as hysterical or crazy as a means of degrading them dates back centuries and that the word hysteria’ comes from the Greek word for womb (hystera) and was one of the first supposed mental health conditions attributed to only women.
Taking Back ‘Hysterical’ via @NYTimes. Talking to Maya Salam @NYT about the wonderful Nike ad with Serena Williams. https://t.co/X1bMBTG35t
— Elaine Showalter (@ecshowalter) February 26, 2019
Links:
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