Paris 2024 has begun with a spectacular celebration of the traditional Olympic values of excellence, respect and friendship... and selfishness, irrationality and deception, according to Nike. One of the biggest sponsors of teams at the Olympic Games has launched a new advert in time for the event, and it's frankly delusional.
Instead of celebrating good sportsmanship and teamwork, the new Nike ad depicts athletes as egotistical maniacs. And while the Willem Dafoe-narrated piece succeeds in its objective of grabbing attention, it's not exactly making people warm to the brand (see our pick of the best Olympics logos and Olympic rings history for more on the Games).
Nike has been struggling in recent years, faced with an influx of newer sports brands doing fresh things. The new Nike advert aims to remind us that it still has A-list clout by featuring an incredible cast of sporting greats, from Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to Kylian Mbappé, Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo and A’ja Wilson. But I have to wonder if they can all relate to the sentiment of the ad, in which a cackling athlete repeatedly asks "Am I bad person?".
"Play like you mean it. Because if you don’t want to win, congrats. You’ve already lost," Nike wrote in the caption to the video on YouTube. But its violent view of sporting ambition is being pounded by the public. "Nike needs to see a therapist", one person wrote in the comments.
For a start, Dafoe is doing his Green Goblin voice, which immediately makes the world's greatest athletes sound like comic supervillains. Then comes the glorification of the worst side of competitive sports, from deception to delusions of grandeur.
Sure, Nike likes to trigger debate. It's made it part of its identity to say things that some people may not agree with. It took a stand back in 2018 with its ad featuring Colin Kaepernick amid the take a knee movement. Great work. But, this latest piece makes it seem Nike just wants attention and doesn't mean anything it says. It's powerfully visceral and sparks a conversation about sporting greatness, but it suggests Nike itself doesn't know what that means anymore.
Taking it beyond sport (let's remember that most Nike customers are not elite athletes), the ad's a basic rehash of the greed is good message from the 1980s. It also reminds me of the recent Apple iPad Pro advert that the tech brand ended up apologising for. Both pieces contradicted the brands' usual messaging in an attempt to grab attention by being hard and edgy rather than thinking about customers and what they stand for. It shows the sorry state of a brand that needs to do some soul searching.
For more on the Olympics, see our roundup of Paris 2024 design controversies. We've also made a pick of the best Olympics poster designs of all time.
