CORE CULTURAL ICONS

CULTURE
Ro bert Goldman
& Stephen P a p s on
HIKE CULTURE

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Core Cultural Icons

SERIES EDITOR: George Ritzer, Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland -

College Park

Core Cultural Icons aims to combine theoretical and practical analysis. The
series, edited by the author of The McDonaldization of Society, George Ritzer,
focuses on key icons in contemporary consumer culture and analyzes them
using the latest cultural theories. In this way, the series seeks to further our
understanding of contemporary culture and to make theoretical issues more
accessible to students who complain that theory is often too forbidding or
daunting. Core Cultural Icons offers a route map for understanding con­
temporary culture and the leading cultural theories of today.

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 HIKE CULTURE
THE SIGN OF THE SWOOSH

ROBERT GOLDMAN
AND
STEPHEN PAPSON

SAGE Publications
London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi

Copyrighted Material
© Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, 1998

First published 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, elec­
tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permis­
sion in writing from the Publishers.

SAGE Publications Ltd

6 Bonhill Street
London EC2A 4PU

SAGE Publications Inc

2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320

SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd

32 M-Block Market
Greater Kailash - I
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

ISBN 0-7619-6148
0-7619-6149-6 (pb)

Library of Congress catalog record available

Typeset by The Bardwell Press, Oxford

Printed in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

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 CONTENTS

Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi

1. Suddenly the Swoosh is Everywhere 1

Nike's Global Landscape 4
Logomania 16
The Great American Philosophy: "Just Do It" 19

2. Just Metacommunicate It 24
Appropriation 26
Tone of Voice: Metacommunication and Subtext 33
Hailing Sports Cultures 36
Advertising and the Knowing Wink 40
Exposing Commercialism? 43

3. Nike and the Construction of a Celebrity Democracy 46

The Ambivalence of Hero Worship 47
The Multiple Personalities of Nike 57
The Community of Sport and Play 61
Transcendence in the Human Community 68

4. Reflexivity and Irreverence 74

Constructing Irreverence and Sign Value 74
The Absence of the Commodity 79
Media-Referential Irreverence 81
The Politics of Irreverence 84
In Your Face Cynicism 86
Irreverence Feeding Cynicism 88
You Suck! 90

5. Alienation, Hope and Transcendence:

Determinism or Determination? 94
Poverty, Hope, and Transcendence 94

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vi C o n te nts

The "Work" Ethic: Cultural Capital Made the Old-Fashioned Way 97

Appropriating African American Culture 100
Hyperauthenticity and "Street" Vernacular 103
The Shadows of Race and Class 109
Signifiers of Alienation and Humanity 113

6. Transcending Difference? Representing Women in Nike's

World 118
Gender Difference in Nike ads 120
Reacting Against the Male Gaze 122
Hailing a New Market in a Different Voice 126
Constructing Female Celebrity Athletes 140
The New Woman in the New Capitalist World Order 143

7. T here are Many Paths to Heaven 146

Spititualitya La Carte 147
Suffering to Win 153
Re-Enchanting a Disenchanted World 161

8. "Just Do It," but not on My Planet 169

From Cultural Icon to Symbolic Capital 169
The Image of Philosophy or the Philosophy of Image? 171
Overswooshification 175
Contested Discourses 178
The Swoosh and its Contradictions 183

Index 187

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 PREFACE

This is a book about the aesthetic power of television images. More properly
it is about the power of television advertising images presented by one
company, Nike.* Nike's ads - as cultural documents - are our primary source
of data. We begin with this evidence because we regard advertising as a
rich cultural form, not simply as trivia wedged in between shows. The deep
analysis of ads can provide insight into the workings of contemporary cul­
ture. Television images and cultural power go together like hand and glove,
and there was no hotter commercial property in the mid 1990s than Nike.
The subject of Nike ads interests us because their study permits us to pose
questions about relationships between an unfolding global economy and
the importance of what may be seen as an economy of imagery.
Our focus is on advertising texts themselves. Although intended to
illuminate much broader matters, this approach none the less risks leaving
other aspects of the story in the background. Matters central to the operation
of Nike, such as sports marketing and shoe design, remain out of sight. And,
though we give considerable attention to Nike's Asian labor problem, we
have not provided much detail about the actual relations of production
from the Asian end. Although our story of Nike advertising lacks an ethnog­
raphy of audiences, our narrative is informed by our daily attention to how
people make sense of ads. Just as significant, we have elected to tell our
story without drawing attention to the personalities who make these ads, or
to the organizational constraints that drive their work. In the course of our
research, we have conducted some interviews with Wieden & Kennedy writ­
ers (Nike's advertising agency) and Nike personnel charged with managing
the advertising. We have attempted to weave what we learned from those
interviews into our analysis rather than drawing attention to the drama of
producing commercial art under pressure-filled conditions.
It is not so easy to write about television ads without being able to see
them, hear them, or engage them directly. This project would work much
better as a multimedia project, but that is not a luxury we have at present,

* Nike is a trademark of the Nike Corporation.

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 Nike C u lture

given the current state of copyright law. Our wish that this text would be
accompanied by a CD-ROM of Nike commercials remains a fantasy.
Consequently, we wrote this book with the assumption that the reader has
some familiarity with Nike advertising. On numerous occasions we pro­
vide thick description of advertising texts. Still, it is an uneasy line that we
walk between too much detail about the texts or too little.
In the 1980s, one of Nike's most memorable TV commercials aimed at
athletes ended with the tagline that there is no finish line. The double mean­
ing of the tagline encompassed what the folks at Wieden & Kennedy believed
summed up the Nike philosophy of sports. The line spoke to athletes: it
conveyed a non-instrumental attitude about athletics that translated into a
philosophy of life. As we have tried to finish this study of Nike's cultural
imagery, this tagline has taken on new meaning for us. Every time we have
approached the completion of this book, history has continued to unfold
in significant ways that altered the stories we seek to tell. Nike was in the
news almost every week, on the front page, the sports page, and the lifestyle
sections. Nike continued to spill out new ads, prompting us to jokingly ask
them if they would please put just a brief moratorium on the ads. Of course,
they did not. While this sense of perpetually running to catch up to our
object of study has been frustrating, it also serves as a useful reminder.
History is never done, and its complete retelling, if ever there was such a
thing, is an elusive desire. Even if the Nike folks had acceded to our wish
and stopped the ads, this would remain an incomplete and partial analysis
ofNike's public discourse. We cannot claim to know all the meanings that
Nike ads elicit among athletes, non-athletes, women, men, gays, straights,
the elderly, children, African Americans, Euro Americans, third world work­
ers, and so on. What we offer here is our interpretation of a phenomenon
that by its very nature is constituted by a range of interpretations. Our goal
remains to stimulate critical public conversations about the place of adver­
tising and commodity culture in our social cosmos, because in the world
of cultural studies as well as in ideologies of sport, there is no finish line . . .
Just after we completed writing this book, Nike even replaced its "Just
do it" tagline, a saying etched into global consciousness, with the new tag of
"I can. " While Nike changed its slogan, the underlying themes of empow­
erment and transcendence remain the same. Nike justified the surprising
announcement as extending the spirit of its basic philosophy with a more
enabling dimension. It should be added, however, that Nike's revenue
peaked in 1997 and has been followed by a pronounced growth slow-down,
and with a flattening of revenues came a tumble in the stock price. One
response was to change slogans. There may have been multiple motiva­
tions behind this change, but we believe that each can be explained by a
theory of advertising that sees it as a tool for engineering ties between com­
modities and images. Jettisoning what was arguably one of the preeminent
taglines in advertising history tells us possibly two things. First, it testifies

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Preface

to the extraordinary reliance of corporations like Nike on the power of adver­

tising to revitalize the currency of its commodities. We are more convinced
than ever that this is an industry dependent on sign values. Second, it is a
reminder that in an economy of signs, slogans and image styles are
ephemeral and unstable. The apparent solidity of Nike's powerful slogan
"Just do it" evaporated in a heartbeat subject to the inexorable calculus of
Capital.

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are appreciative of the students and former students who performed

library research and who have read drafts of various chapters and given
valuable feedback. Thanks to Heather Thompson, Lynn Kaplan, Jen
Hambleton, Kerry Schniewind, Dawn Stanley, Anna Ryan, and Myka
Hunter. Thanks also to Steve Gardiner, Alicia Rebensdorf, and Jessica
Kreutter, as well as ex-ad avengers Arjan Schutte and Anne Wehr for their
lively interaction around the matters discussed in this book. Thanks to Gary
Gereffi for his suggestions on earlier drafts of the commodity chain map.
We also gratefully thank those professionals at Nike and Wieden & Kennedy
who gave generously of their time and patience to answer our questions.
Finally thanks to family, friends, and colleagues for their good humor,
patience, and support.

The lyrics quoted on pp. 29-30 are from "The Revolution Will Not Be
Televised" - Gil Scott-Heron ©1971,1978. Bienstock Publishing Company.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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1.
SUDDENLY THE SWOOSH
IS EVERYWHERE

The credo in today's arenas: no swoosh, no swagger.1

We live in a cultural economy of signs and Nike's swoosh is currently the

most recognizable brand icon in that economy.* Nike's swoosh is a commercial
symbol that has come to stand for athletic excellence, a spirit of determina­
tion, hip authenticity, and playful self-awareness. W hile the logo carries the
weight of currency, Nike's "Just do it" slogan has become part of the lan­
guage of everyday life. Indeed, the Nike swoosh is so firmly lodged in the
public consciousness that Nike no longer necessarily includes its name in its
ads or on billboards. The shoe vanished from Nike TV ads some time ago.
Then in the mid 1990s the Nike name has also quietly disappeared, leaving
only the swoosh logo to mark the ads. Nike signs its ads with only its icon,
so confident are they that the swoosh can be interpreted minus any accom­
panying text. Nike's 1997 annual report makes just this point: the "company
has come to be known by a symbol- the swoosh."
The swoosh achieved visual omnipresence. And yet this, precisely, has
been Nike's achilles heel. The visual embedding of the swoosh onto all envi­
ronments - the clothing products we use, the social spaces we occupy and
the media we watch - gave rise to overswooshification (when every surface
has a swoosh across it like the Air Max running shoes with seven swoosh
exposures on each shoe). Overexposure, for Nike, overswooshification, pre­
sents the peril of sign inflation - the more common the swoosh becomes the
less value it has. Nike sought to combat this in December 1997 by moving
away from its swoosh signature to signing its commercials as Nike, in a small,
tight cursive font.
Nike and its advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy, currently stand out The swoosh tattooed on this
athelete's chest expresses
as leaders in what may be described as a cultural economy of images. The
identification with Nike's philoso­
Nike swoosh sign has rapidly gained an identification level that rivals the phy to "just do it" by reminding
Coca-Cola icon, while its brand value is currently unparalleled. The preemi­ him to stay committed to working
nence of the Nike logo has translated into record corporate earnings fiscal out.

• Nike and the swoosh are trademarks of the Nike Corporation.

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2 Nike C u l tu re

quarter after fiscal quarter, making Nike a blue chip stock. Instantly recog­
nized throughout the world, the Nike swoosh sometimes seems to be every­
where - on shirts and caps and pants. The icon is no longer confined to shoes
as sponsorship deals have plastered the swoosh across jerseys and sporting
arenas of all manner, from basketball to football to volleyball to track to soc­
cer to tennis to hockey. Nike's growth strategy is based on penetrating new
markets in apparel while making acquisitions in sporting goods. The value
of the swoosh now runs so deep that visitors to remote, rural, and impover­
ished regions of the Third World report finding peasants sewing crude swoosh
This cartoon by Lalo appeared in imitations on to shirts and caps, not for the world market but for local con­
La Jomado, a Mexico City news­
sumption. Even in the hinterlands of places like Jamaica and Guatemala,
paper. Reproduced by permission
of Lalo Alcaraz. the swoosh symbol carries recognition and status. As the Nike symbol has
grown ascendant in the marketplace of images, Nike has become the sign
some people love to love and the sign others love to hate.
It is now a commonplace to observe that Nike advertising is no longer
about selling shoes but about keeping the swoosh highly visible and highly
valued. This does not surprise us because we view advertising as a cultural
space in which competitors try to maximize the value of their visual logo
in an always-fluctuating economy of signs. We view advertising as a vehicle
for articulating a brand's sign value. This means that an ad campaign gives
visibility and meaning to a brand image, and that it joins together mean­
ings of the product with meanings evoked by the imagery. Virtually every ad
these days is an investment in this kind of brand identity. In Nike's case this
involved joining images of Michael Jordan with the meaning of Nike shoes -
Michael Jordan joined to Nike shoes lends value to the meaning of the swoosh.
Since he provided the initial source of value in this exchange, it is no sur­
prise that Michael Jordan himself has long since been transformed into a
global iconic presence in the media, so much so that in 1996 Nike introduced
a "Brand Jordan" line of shoes and apparel.
Consumer ads usually invite viewers into fantasies of individualism,
although the promise of individualism is likely premised on conformity of
consumption preferences. Since the 1960s advertising has grown reliant on
formulas for branding goods with the imagery of individual identity and
well being. But as the number of consumer products has steadily increased,
so has advertising clutter. Ads became predictable and boring, and what is
worse, too many of them looked the same. Hence, though every advertiser
seeks to differentiate their product name and symbol from competitors,
when they use the same formulas and cliches everyone else uses, they thwart
their own purpose. Every once in a while, someone will break away from
the pack, but competitors usually respond by imitating the innovative look
or style until it is no longer distinctive. By the early 1980s, widespread con­
sumer discontent with the recipes of advertising had developed. By the late
1980s, a few leading edge advertising agencies recognized that media-liter­
ate baby boomers and post-baby boomers had grown alienated from slick

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Sudde n l y the Swoosh is Eve rywhere 3

ads built around appeals to consuming individualism and status through

commodities.
Nike and its advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy, have built their rep­
utation on advertising that is both distinctive and avoids claims of packaged
individualism . Their ads have garnered public admiration because they seem
to speak in a voice of honesty and authenticity. Paradoxically, their aura of
authenticity has been a product of their willingness to address alienated
spectators about feeling alienated from media-contrived images. Wieden &
Kennedy has cobbled together a style that sometimes ventures into the waters
of political provocation; a style situated at the intersection between public
and private discourses where themes of authenticity and personal morality
converge with the cynical and nihilistic sensibility that colors contemporary
public exchanges. Ranging from moral indictment to showers of praise, Nike
ad campaigns have sometimes provoked intense public interest. Within the
realm of popular culture, Nike ads constantly surprise and excite, because The two sides ofNike: (top) the
they are unafraid of being controversial. This willingness to take chances in its cynical side, Dennis Hopper paro­
dying Patton's speech; and (bot­
ads has translated into Nike's dominance in the sign economy.
tom) the inspirational sides.
Looking at Nike's advertising from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, Eighty-year-old Walt Stack run­
we find Nike ads come in two basic flavors. One flavor is of an irreverent, ning 17 miles a day.
winking attitude toward everything that smacks of commodity culture. Nike
adopts a self-reflexive posture about the formulas of consumer-goods adver­
tising as well as a self-aware attitude about its own position as a wealthy
and powerful corporation in an industry based on influencing desires and
tastes. These ads speak to savvy and jaded viewers about the glossy, staged
exultations of one brand or another that daily assault us. In these ads, Nike
hails viewers wary of the continuous incursion of commodified discourses
into all life spheres. In the second flavor, however, Nike constructs itself as
the vehicle of an ethos that integrates themes of personal transcendence,
achievement, and authenticity. We call this Nike's motivational ethos. By mix­
ing these two flavors of advertising, Nike has created an advertising dis­
course that is able to present itself as a legitimate public discourse. Nike
advertising has ventured beyond the typical advertising agenda of merely
building up its own sign to construct what appears to be a personal philos­
ophy of daily life.
Nike's advertising has invested the swoosh with a sensibility that resists
the profane and cheesy tendencies that consumers associate with commercial
culture. Nike advertising does more than simply sell shoes as commodities, it
gives voice to important cultural contradictions that define our era. In this
regard, we see Nike advertising as representative of a newly W1folding stage
of commodity culture mixed with cultural politics. This is evident where
Nike has pursued a calculated approach to provoking public debate and con­
troversy, something that previous rounds of consumer advertising sought
to avoid at all costs. In this vein, Nike's method of advertising as storytelling
interests us because of the way it draws on the rhetorical legacy of middle

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4 Nike C u lture

class morality to raise questions that are not immediately resolvable through
recourse to commodities. We believe that Nike's advertising is popular
because of the way it speaks to, and embraces, the contradictions of both
middle-class morality and the language of commodities.

HIKE'S GLOBAL LANDSCAPE

Nike's advertising builds on the globalization of sports culture, at the same

time that it contributes to the globalization of commodity culture. Nike's
business has benefited as much as anyone from the globalization of com­
modity culture. "The aim is to sell a global brand through marketing that
appeals to local tastes." According to Nike vice-chairman, Richard Donahue,
"The commitment is to be a global company - one management, one theme,
one value, one ethic around the world."2 Nike exemplifies what has become
Above, a Nike billboard graces known as a hollowed corporation. In the global dispersal of business func­
St. Petersburg, Russia.
tions the actual manufacture of goods no longer forms the central axis of
such corporations; instead the production process is broken up, farmed out,
Below, cheerleaders open a Nike
store in St. Petersburg. Is Nike and spatially dispersed. Conversely, the hollowed corporation is heavily
appealing to local tastes orfash­ dependent on the circulation of images or sign values to generate profits.
ioning a global monoculture? As we have noted, Nike is a company that competes par excellence in an econ­
omy of signs and images.
In 1997 Nike grossed over $9 billion of sales in its athletic footwear
business and its related apparel and sports equipment businesses (e.g.,
hockey skates, swim goggles, soccer balls). In the US, Nike's share of the
branded athletic footwear business expanded to 43.6%, taking further mar­
ket share away from then second-ranked Reebok, which slipped to 15.9% of
market share, with Adidas and Fila emerging from the pack in third and
fourth place. Few probably remember any more that just ten years earlier
in 1987 Nike trailed Reebok by a score of 30.1 % to 18.2% in the market share
battle. Though the top four firms accounted for over 72% of the one billion
pair of athletic shoes sold in 1996 in the US, Nike dominated the industry. It
accounted for nearly 60% of shoes in stock at major retail chains including
Finish Line, Footaction, and Foot Locker.3 This dominance in the athletic
footwear industry has led some retailers to see the "swoosh as double-edged
sword" - bringing in fat profit margins but also making them overly depen­
dent on Nike and reducing retailers' relative bargaining power with the
shoewear giant.4 Phil Knight, Nike CEO, summarized the primary reason
for the expansive 40% annual growth of the Nike brand: "The 99% increase in
sales of US athletic apparel is testament to the powerful brand equity we've
created."
Analysts seeNike evolving from "a shoe giant to marketing behemoth
whose trademark "swoosh" symbol now graces everything from hockey gear
to swimwear."s A review of Nike's annual reports shows that Nike's revenue

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Suddenly the Swoosh is Eve rywhere 5

machine has been propelled in recent years by the expansion of its branded
apparel business, by its entry into the sports equipment business, by the surg­
ing popularity of women's athletic shoes, and by the continuing growth of
its international markets. As a proportion of total revenues, Nike's interna­
tional sales of footwear and apparel grew from approximately 27% in 1987 to
more than 37% in1997. And Nike expects that the fastest growth to come will
be in the emerging markets of Latin America and the Asian-Pacific region.
Driven by Japanese consumers' panic-buying of Nike shoes at wildly inflated
prices, Nike's Asia-Pacific shoe sales increased by 70% in1997.6 In 1996 Nike
signed a celebrity endorsement deal with the Brazilian national soccer team,
perennially one of the top soccer teams in the world, in an effort to build
brand recognition in soccer-crazy South America.? Though Nike's market
share in the international footwear arena does not yet compare with its
domestic dominance, Nike President Tom Clarke predicts that Nike's interna­
tional sales will surpass domestic sales by the close of the 1990s,8
Before we discuss the cultural politics of Nike advertising, the devel­
opment of Nike's brandpower, and the cultural significance of the Nike icon,
we need to consider the significance of the Nike swoosh in the context of
changes that have reshaped a global capitalist system of producing, distrib­
uting, and selling goods. In the reshaping of the global business system one
watchword has been flexibility - the flexibility of production facilities, of
___location, of communications, and of course, jobs, as manifested in what is
now known as outsourcing9 Producers as diverse as Nike, Intel (computer
semiconductors), and Seiko (watches) all operate global production processes
"organized through dispersal, geographical mobility, and flexible responses
in labor markets, labor processes, and consumer markets."w Going hand in
hand with outsourcing and flexible production practices is a general process
of "sneakerization" which refers to the proliferation of niche, and sub-niche,
markets. While Nike produced over 300 models and 900 styles of shoes in
24 different footwear categories in 1989,11 by 1996 Nike technology had
evolved into the design of approximately1,200 shoe models, which translates
into approximately 3,000 styles and colors of shoes. As Nike's general man­
ager for China observed, "In the old days we'd make one model and it
would run for 9-12 months. But no more. Now we are changing models
every week."12
Though "sneakerization" was obviously coined in reference to the shoe
industry and the creation of specialty shoes, the same tendency manifests
itself just as readily in automobiles, watches, fashion, and semiconductors. U
So it is not surprising that Intel is investing in its logo just as Nike has.

Even from the window of a jet soaring over Silicon Valley, the "Intel
Inside" swirl logo is part of the landscape, splashed across the roof of
the giant chip-maker's headquarters. The symbol is everywhere today,
notably plastered to the front of most brands of personal computers. 14

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6 Nike C u l ture

This is exactly what we would expect in an industry where proprietary prod­

ucts rapidly turn into commodities after their introduction, product life-cycles
shrink more and more rapidly, and producers who wish to stay competitive
must be prepared to specialize for niche markets. We could repeat this mantra
a thousand times to stress the underlying point here: in a commodity world,
you've got to have a logo to make your product stand out.
Nike is a transnational corporation that links national economies into a
complex web of global production arrangements. In its 199 6 Securities &
Exchange Form 10-K Filing, Nike describes its business as follows:

The Company's principal business activity involves the design, devel­

opment and worldwide marketing of high quality footwear, apparel,
and accessory products. The Company sells its products to approxi­
mately 18,000 retail accounts in the United States and through a mix of
independent distributors, licensees and subsidiaries in approximately
110 countries around the world. Virtually, all of the Company's prod­
ucts are manufactured by independent contractors. Most footwear
products are produced outside the United States, while apparel prod­
ucts are produced both in the United States and abroad.

Notably absent from this description, Nike makes no mention of pro­

ducing shoes or apparel. This is because Nike is not a production company.
Almost all production of shoes, apparel, and accessories is outsourced to
contract suppliers in developing nations while the home office in Beaverton,
Oregon designs, develops, and markets the branded goods. In the global
athletic footwear industry, shoe design, distribution, advertising, market­
ing and promotion "constitute the epicenter of innovative strategies that
allows enterprises to capture greater shares of wealth within a global com­
modity chain."16 Nike coordinates and organizes a complex logistical enter­
prise that weaves together material and non-material inputs across national
boundaries. While the most complicated of Nike's shoes contain over 200
component pieces, a quick glance at a more modest shoe reveals the direction
of globalized production. The Nike Air Max Penny basketball shoe consists of
52 material components produced in five different nations. Assembly of
these components which include items such as a midsole, an outsole, a car­
bon fiber composite plate, along with proprietary technology components
such as the Forefoot Zoom Air Unit, requires that a pair of Nike shoes will
have been "touched by more than 120 pairs of hands during production."l?
Nike's AnnuallO-K reports document the diversified manufacturing
of "virtually all of the Company's footwear" by contract suppliers operat­
ing throughout Asia. The development of the athletic footwear industry has
driven the movement of production from Japan to South Korea and Taiwan,
and then to lower wage regions in Indonesia, the People's Republic of China,
and Vietnam. Whereas South Korea and Taiwan accounted for a combined
76% of Nike shoewear production in 19 87, by 199778% of Nike's shoes came

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Su d d e n l y the Swoosh is Eve r y wh e re 7

Contract Suppliers of Nike Footwear

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

from Indonesia and China while the share produced by South Korea and
Taiwan had shrunk to7%. Nike's strategy of overseas sourcing is premised on
treating its product as a "global commodity chain" which can be dissected
into component processes. This permits the shoe company to seek maxi­
mum flexibility over each part of the chain. Nike's strategy (and its com­
petitors do the same thing) is "to retain control over highly profitable nodes
in the athletic footwear commodity chain, while avoiding the rigidity and
pressures that characterize the more competitive [manufacturing] nodes of
the chain."18 In today's athletic shoe industry, no company has been able to
gain a significant advantage over their competition from the actual manu­
facture of the product. So why take on the headaches of building manufac­
turing sites and organizing and maintaining a labor force when it makes
greater fiscal sense to subcontract the manufacturing process? As a Nike vice­
president for Asia-Pacific operations was quoted in 1992: "We don't know the
first thing about manufacturing. We are marketers and designers."19 There Flexible accumulation is synony­
was an additional benefit to this strategy: it allowed Nike to distance them­ mous with the flow of capital
investment across borders. This
selves from questions regarding the treatment of labor in this manufacturing
factory in Vietnam is a newer site
process. When another Nike executive was asked about a labor disturbance ofproduction of Nike shoes.
in a Nike contract factory, he could in fact reply that he didn't know, while Which country will be the next
adding that "I don't know that I need to knoW."20 source of cheap labor?
It is very difficult to compete in today's athletic footwear industry
without engaging in the outsourcing of labor to relatively unskilled laborers
in impoverished nations.21 Companies in the athletic footwear industry
depend on the existence of poor Asian nations where there is a ready surplus

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8 Nike C u lture

THE COMMODITY CIRCUITRY OF THE HIKE SHOE

Conceptualizing the Shoe Creating Markets

Nike Inc., Bea,"erton, Oregon

Advertising
Wiedell & Kelllledy,
Portland, Oregon

strategies

Marketing
(stimulates and
monitors markets)
Audience
Development
(O\"ersees feedback about Athletes
prodL1ction) products and
representation

Buyers
sales kits

feedback

orders

exchange
designs. quotas

\
Nike Sales

samples
Trading (products)

Companies
NIAC, Jap<1nese
Manufacturing (handles tariffs and futures
(orders)
customs,
transportation)

Subcontractors
Taiwanese, Korean
(bring together, material,
design and workers)

Assembly factories
Distribution
Raw high end low end NIKETOWNs,
Taiwanese Chinese Footlocker,
materials
Korean Indonesian Foot(1ctiOll,
Vietnamese other franchises,
athletic goods stores

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Sudde n ly the Swoosh is Everywh ere 9

labor force in need of work and wages, even if those wages are below the
poverty line. In fact, researchers point out that the same factories and the
same subcontractors often provide shoes for Reebok, Adidas, Puma, LA Gear,
New Balance, Nike, and others. "While there is fierce competition for market
share in developed countries, subcontractors are often shared by sports shoe
companies. Visit an Asian factory producing these shoes and you will see
the major brands rolling side by side off the same production lines."22
During the Summer of 1996, Nike became the focus of media scrutiny
because of questions about the treatment of the laborers who manufacture
Nike shoes. Since then, Nike has taken considerable public heat along with a
large helping of moral condemnation. We believe this dispute can be made to
shed light on Nike's role in the emerging global economy of signs. The pho­
tographic "discovery" of Pakistani children making Nike soccer balls at 6¢. an
hour precipitated nothing less than a moral hailstorm, stirring up dormant
feelings about justice and questions of right and wrong in a global econ­
omy.23 The global economy refers to a world unified by market forces that
have pushed into any and all fresh new areas "worth" exploiting. Since the
Reagan-Bush Presidencies, "deregulation" and "free trade" policies pre­
vailed, and capital and people (mostly people looking for work) flooded
across national borders.

Opposite: Ullrauelillg COll11lloditJ/ Cirellit;;

This IlIlIp of Nike's COllllllOditJ/ elwill is all allnlytic fictioll, p01uer relatiolls, witll power illeqlllliities alollg the cilllin
thollgh n IN/III fictioll." I t si1llplifies the rrlntiollships thnt go defillillg its elwmcter nlld its Olltcollies.
illto gettillg n shoe to IIwrket. /11 the renl (Porld, the relatioll­ We have distillgllished the hierarchy of sllbcolltractor
ships IIrc less c1eall, with IllOre feedbllck loops. Illdeed, the COII­ plllllt5 ill ten liS of tec/lIlOlogical sopllisticntioll nlld reqllisite
cept of "elwin " IIwy be sliglltly 1IIislendillg, i1llplyillg II skills, bllt 1I0t ill tenlls ofownC/'ship. Thollgh Taiwan hns
linenritlj of rellltiollS, like II elwill of Cllllsniity. Perhaps we llearly disappearedji-oll1 Nike's production statistics, tile
should call it illstead, nil illtersectioll of circllits, euell thollgh Taiil'llll factories have shifted toward prodllcing higher quality
the cOllcept of "circuit" Ilwy collcenl the aSljllllllctriclI1 dilliell­ shoes alld I/lOr(' tecilllologically advnnced shoes, inellldillg the
sian to these relntionships. Nevertileless, tilis killd of displny lIew Air Pelllli/ Illade alit of foalliposile (Illoided plastic).
helps cOllceptulllize tile Nike COllllllOditlj ciwill as cmlsistillg of A Nike eriticislIl of our 1/1111' is tllllt it fails to place the ath­
interrelated circuits - fillnncinl; IIwllllfnctllrillg; 1IInrketillg; lete at the center. Ideologiclllly, Nike really does thillk of the
dcsigll; distributioll. Please keep ill Illilld tile followillg mumts atlzlete this wnlj. Looking nt the Nike colIlIl/odity chain frolll
ill vie(uill g this 111111'. this perspective can, indeed, illlllllillate ollr ul1derstanding of it.
The IIIOst difficllit circllit to plnce (uitllill ollr IlInp is A t the root, Nike is abollt cOl/llllodifying sport. By Nike's own
fillance nlld /1/oney. Tile 1II001elllellt of 11I01lel/ is illlplicit ill Ollr I7ccollnt it exists to serve tile athlete, to provide the athlete with
IIInp, bllt only bnrely visible. the tools to perl1lit peak pelfomlllnce. if one believes in the
All II nderaccelltllnted illstitlltiollnl drhlCr ill this dingrlllll il/llllallelice of the il1dividulIl- ill the possibility of achieving a
is the 'jlltures I'ragra 111 " thnt Nike IIses to colltrol nlld disci­ seif mpnblc, 11IetnpllOricalllj, of conqllerillg the world, thel1 Ol1e
pline its prodllction, distributioll, nlld resellillg pnrtllers. Tllis call verlj easily see how the IIced that Nike serves quickly tums
is the II1Cciwllis1ll tiwt Nike IIses to gllide whnt llns COllie to be into n Desire. And, generalli/, the deepest desires l1Iake the best
known ns just-ill-tillle prodllctioll. COllIl/lOdities. This is the subjective root of the collllllodity
A 1IInp such ns this i1llplies n sci of COllstnllt reintiolls. III ciwill.
fnct, the c/will is II/Ore properly cOIlceptlllllized as II set of pllisillg

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10 Nike C u ltu re

The globalization of corporate production has rendered production

processes relatively invisible - out of sight and out of mind - to most con­
sumers. At the same time there has been an almost daily bemoaning of the
loss of moral fiber in American life. Capitalism may have prevailed in all its
glory as the engine of commerce, but it has also plunged us into the scary
twilight of social and cultural crisis. For all of the public browbeating about
the loss of civility and the erosion of family values, politicians opportunisti­
cally try to exploit the symptoms of crisis by romantically calling for a return
to the values of yesteryear, while evading the deeper questions of why those
values are in crisis. The corporate news media do little better, preferring to
spectacularize the symptoms of crisis and commentary, rather than risk the
possibility of indicting themselves as contributing culprits. As sociologists,
we perceive the source of such problems precisely in the extension of markets
as ways of structuring our lives, when most relations must pass through
these market forces. Over the time span of the last century, market institu­
tions have inexorably gained ground at the expense of church-organized
religions. Markets favor the forces of individualism, particularly the free­
dom of economic, social, and psychological movement. To achieve well in
today's extra-competitive marketplace, individuals find it is to their advan­
tage to be mobile and to pursue their own self-interests. Such practices run
counter to common desires for community and a shared spiritual life. It is
precisely this kind of vaguely anomic cultural politics that has opened a
space for Nike to prosper in, as it has constructed for itself an umbrella image
of an entity that stands for a moral recentring of relationships.
Hence, the discovery that Nike might be associated with slavery and
child labor seemed particularly disturbing because it so diverged from the
image that most people have of Nike through its advertising. We will argue
in this book that Nike ads construct an impression that Nike has a sturdy and
durable moral center. Indeed, Nike ads allow viewers to project their own
need for a moral center on to the Nike swoosh. Strange as it may sound, we
believe that many people today may find themselves drifting toward pre­
ferred advertising images to provide them with a sense of a shared moral
ethic. Nike has inspired a particularly ardent form of loyalty based on invest­
ing some part of one's own identity in the Nike name and logo. Could the
Nike we associate with the swoosh and its meanings of empowerment and
the freedom to achieve, really be up to its ears in the sordid injustices it is
accused of?
In the current media debate about Nike contract factories' treatment of
women workers in Indonesia, Vietnam, and China, Nike's defenders maintain
that relative to other workers in Indonesia the Nike jobs are prized for the
opportunities they provide.25 Whether empirically true or not, this view
neatly avoids the fundamental structural conditions that explain why shoe
factories locate in this region. Reebok, Adidas, Fila, Asics, LA Gear, Puma,
Converse, Keds, K-Swiss, and Nike (in other words most of the industry) seek

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Su dden l y the Swoosh is Ever ywhere 1 1

the best deals they can find among competing contract manufacturers. The
subcontractors, in tum, depend on the overall immiseration of places like
Indonesia as a means of securing cheap labor and disciplining workers.
Given this set of circumstances, it comes as no surprise that in the brutally
competitive athletic footwear and apparel industry, companies would have
an interest in pitting subcontractors against one another in their contract
bids. W hen this occurs, strict capitalist arithmetic tells us that South Korean
and Taiwanese contract suppliers will seek to pass along their costs to their
workforce by squeezing out longer hours and lower wages.
Nike's human rights critics, led by Press for Change and Global Exchange,
point to the exploitation of labor in the global shift to "flexible" systems of
production where semi-skilled and unskilled manufacturing labor is dis­
placed and outsourced to low-wage regions. On its face, it looks like the
same old process of capitalist industrialization that immiserated English
workers in order to generate capital for growth. But in the early stages of
capitalist industrialization, when Marx was writing, the locus of value pro­
duction was pretty much in one place. With the global commodity chain,
the question of where, and how much, value is added along the many entry
points to the commodity chain becomes a critical issue in figuring out who
are the winners and who are the losers in these global value-construction
chains. There are some who still believe that the primary source of value
comes from those who work with their hands on assembly lines. We believe
this is an outdated and erroneous premise. In today's athletic footwear com­
modity chain, the symbolic workers (e.g., advertisers, marketers, and design­
ers) contribute the greater share of value to the product.
Reliable data on worker pay in Indonesia and China is difficult to
obtain because all sides in the dispute have vested interests in presenting
themselves in the best light. Let's use the Indonesian example. In March
199 6 , Press for Change, a group critical of Nike's labor practices, claimed "that
45 workers shared just over $1 .60 for making [a $70 pair of Nike Air Pegasus]
shoes." Meanwhile, a Nike spokeswoman stated that an $80 pair of shoes
contains $2.60 in labor costs. In 199 6 , the daily minimum
wage in Indonesia was 5 ,200 rupiah or roughly $2.35 . This
contest over wages was accentuated by "the problem that the
minimum wage does not provide for minimum subsistence
. . . And beyond that, the companies don't always pay what is
required by law. "26
Despite the obvious discrepancy between the costs of
labor and the retail price of the product, the preponderance of
the shoe's value does not get produced in the Indonesian fac­
tories where the shoe is assembled and stitched. True, the fac­
tory is where the actual assembly of materials takes place,
where a real material product that we consume is glued and
sewed together. But our consumer-based society has reached Source' llIckJstryUperlS

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12 Nike C u lture

the point where a blank shoe is meaningless. That's right, meaningless - the
white shoe is a blank if it is not marked by a sign. Can the same blank shoe
inspire desire anymore? No, or at least not often enough to drive market
share. In fact, the market value of these products is produced by Nike's design
and marketing specialists.
When Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Chinese women are poorly com­
pensated for their labor, are subject to health and safety hazards, and are
physically harassed by authoritarian shopfloor managers, old measures of
industrial exploitation still define a commonsense index of injustice. The
Indonesian case also makes clear that global capitalism means a geographi­
cal shift of the locus of harsh treatment in the labor process. As we observed
above, unequal power relations govern commodity chains. Nike exercises
more power along this particular chain than any other player today, from
Indonesia to the retail merchant at the shopping mall. Still, Nike remains far
from able to fully discipline its partners and encounters resistance from its
partners. Nike's system of production in Asia is a delicate behemoth that
requires careful management to keep all the pieces in balance between Nike,
its South Korean or Taiwanese contract manufacturers, and the host nation­
state that supplies a reserve army of labor. From 1 996 to the present, the
efforts of watchdog human rights groups to publicize questions regarding the
labor relations in Nike affiliated factories has made it more difficult for Nike
to contain contradictions along the chain. During the Spring of 1 997 Nike
arranged to have Andrew Young, the prominent civil rights leader and for­
mer Ambassador to the UN, tour the Asian manufacturing facilities and
assess the quality of work conditions. Young's report generally gave these
factories decent marks, although it called attention to two critical problems.
First, the Korean and Taiwanese managers were linguistically and cultur­
ally estranged from the Vietnamese, Chinese and Indonesian workers they
supervised. Second, Young found that though Nike had trumpeted its Nike
Code of Conduct, few managers or workers seemed to know of it.27 Nike took
advantage of the Young report to announce a series of initiatives designed to
remedy the situation. But Nike's critics perSisted, and in September 1997,
Nike acceded to the demands of public relations, and severed ties with four
factories because "the factories either were not paying the legal minimum
wage or were violating other tenets of Nike's Code [of Conduct]. Workers at one
of the factories, for instance, were averaging 70 to SO-hour workweeks, said
Dusty Kidd, a Nike spokesman."2H
The industry offers a classic example of the deskilling of production.
The migration of shoe assembly jobs from one Asian nation to the next is
only possible if the work of making shoes is deskilled. Shoe assembly has
been broken down into highly specialized gluing and stitching tasks.
Seemingly contradictory forces structure the footwear industry. Though
shoes are assembled by a labor-intensive manufacturing sector dependent on
the availability of low wage workers to maintain competitiveness, cheap

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Su d d e n ly the Swoosh is Everywhe re 13

labor as such does not appear to be the determining factor in calculating

profitability. Still, since Nike's indirect labor costs cover approximately 500 0
, 00
workers scattered throughout Asia's contract factories, wage increases, how­
ever modest, will either impact earnings or be passed along to consumers.
Despite these constraints, we believe the more significant factors influencing
profits for firms like Nike are found in the "combinations of high-value
research, design, sales, marketing, and financial services that allow the buy­
ers and branded merchandisers to act as strategic brokers in linking over­
seas factories and traders with evolving product niches in their main
consumer markets." As a buyer-driven commodity chain that is "design and
marketing intensive," Nike has concentrated its strategic efforts at exercis­
ing control over the "point of consumption."29 Nike innovated the strategy of
futures orders in the athletic shoewear industry to gain greater control over
its retail channels while also reducing expenses associated with maintain­
ing inventories. Instead of growing revenues by investing in capital equip­
ment related to production, Nike's key investments have been in advertising
and promotion. Whereas Nike has historically spent around 3% of its annual
revenues on capital expenditures, spending on advertising and promotions
consistently runs in the neighborhood of 10% of annual revenues. When we
look carefully at these expenditures we see again why Nike is thought of as a
hollowed corporation. Three per cent per year on capital expenditures is
very low compared to traditional manufacturing. Further, even when we
take note of Nike's increase in capital spending during 1997 (up from 3% to
5%), we find that capital spending was spent not on production, but on dis­
tribution infrastructure (warehouse locations), computerized management
information systems, administrative infrastructure (world headquarters
expansion at the Beaverton campus), and display infrastructure (develop­
ment of NIKETOWN retail locations).30
Nike behaves as if its advertising and marketing spending is a key
investment driving future earnings growth. A comparison of the annualized
growth curves of total revenue and advertising reveals a remarkable corre­
spondence. Which direction the causal arrow is pointing we cannot say, but
the correspondence does suggest the possibility that advertising (symbolic

Nike Advertising and Promotion Expenditures Nike Revenues

10,000,000
1,000,000
9,000,000
900,000
8,000,000
800,000
7,000,000
700,000
6,000,000
600,000
500,000
� 5,000,000
S 4,000,000
..
400,000
3,000,000
300,000
2,000,000
200,000
1,000,000
100,000
0 of' n C! :--..
"- '" '" " � � :;J. �
:J'I :;!\o ;" :»
'" '" '" '" '" ... .... .... ....
'" '" '" '" '"

[J International _ Domestic revenues DTotal revenues

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14 Nike C u lture

production) is among the more significant "value-added processes" along

the Nike commodity chain. Nike's critics often adopt the rhetorical strategy
of juxtaposing the remarkable size of Nike's annual advertising budget spend­
ing against the total of wages paid to the - say Indonesian women - workers
who assemble the shoes. One such critic begins by posing the question, "why
not pay double the minimum wage?" David Moberg pursues his query by
drawing on 199 6 data to assert that "analysts say Nike annually spends $6 50
million on marketing, nearly 10 times what it would cost the company to
double the wages of all its Indonesian workers."31 For Moberg, the size of
Nike's advertising budget turns into an indicator of Nike's indifference to the
factory workers who labor in Nike's behalf in Indonesia. Comparing ad
spending with wages in this way suggests misplaced moral priorities on the
part of Nike. However, this sort of glib moral assumption fails to acknowledge
the current political-economic fact that additional dollars spent on advertis­
ing and marketing boost profit margins proportionately, while wages are
simply a cost of doing business. There is, indeed, a relationship between
advertising and exploitation, but only if we shift the focus of moral attack
from Nike to the contemporary capitalist world economy to examine the rela­
tionship between sign production and the global production system.
In 199 6 , Phil Knight, the founder and CEO of Nike, doubled his fortune
to over $5 .5 billion, because Nike's stock value more than doubled in price,
vaulting him from 138 th to7th on Forbes' annual list of wealthiest persons.
Some injustice, some imbalance, seems obvious here. While Nike revenues
have grown by around 40% per year, women and children laborers from
Phil Knight addresses Indonesia to Vietnam to Pakistan have received bare-subsistence wages and,
stockholders. in some cases, have been subject to corporal punishment in the labor-inten­
sive factories.32 Cartoonists and columnists teed off on the flagrant inequali­
ties. A Christian Science Monitor cartoon by Jeff Danziger titled "The World
According to Nike" cast Nike's relationships with American youth and third
world workers in stark ironic relief. On the side of the cartoon labeled "USA"
a young male slouches against a brick wall, with the caption above reading
"No work" while the caption below reads "$150 shoes." By contrast, the
frame to the right labeled "Indonesia" pictures a shoeless Indonesian woman
who labors hunched over a sewing machine, while the caption reads, "Lots
of work. No shoes."33 This seems to confirm Karl Marx's account of the oper­
ation of Capital built on the exploitation of labor. And yet, moral indigna­
tion aside, Nike's stock value has soared in direct proportion to its dominance
in the field of imagery - the dominance of its signifier, the swoosh.
The primary source of value is now located in the cultural production
and appropriation side of the coin. This means that while Asian firms "are
producing the actual shoe, US-based Nike promotes the symbolic nature of
the shoe and appropriates the greater share of value resulting from its
sales."34 Nike's advertising sifts through the cultural politics of consumption
and distills from it the appropriate visual and moral aesthetic to attach to

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Sud d e n ly the Swoosh is Everywhere 15

its logo. Though the Nike swoosh represents a unified, or global, symbol in the
sense that it points universally to Nike, the swoosh can also accept a multi­
plicity of localized and specific meanings. If we were to judge the new sys­
tem of flexible accumulation by Nike's operations, the manipulation of
cultural meanings has become the key to value production, and not just an
addendum. This claim bears repeating. In this newly emerging era of global
production, advertising as a system of producing sign values has made cul­
ture a central component of the economy.
Even though Nike officials pride themselves in both public and private
on making the "best athletic shoe technology" to advance athlete's perfor­
mance, overall the athletic shoe industry tends to deliver parity products
produced under similar conditions using relatively standardized produc­
tion practices. Once competitors mimic or adapt Nike's leading technology,
and its system of futures' orders, and its methodology of outsourcing, what
is left? The key to making a profit in a parity industry is finding a way to
differentiate your product from every other product. In the intensely com­
petitive athletic footwear industry, products can be differentiated by function,
appearance or style, price, and logo. While rapid changes in technology and
consumer preference drive competition, there is considerable evidence to
support the view that product value has less to do with the material prop­
erties of the product than with its symbolic properties. The real value of the
Nike shoe is the swoosh it carries on its side. The swoosh has become a form of
social and cultural currency that draws its value from factors such as the
style of shoe design and the power of celebrity endorsers. Nike competi­
tiveness depends primarily on its logo or "trademark."

NIKE utilizes trademarks on nearly all of its products and believes that
having distinctive marks that are readily identifiable is an important fac­
tor in creating a market for its goods, in identifying the Company and in
distinguishing its goods from the goods of others. The Company consid­
ers its NIKE® and Swoosh ® design trademarks to be among its most valu­
able assets and has registered these trademarks in over 100 countries. In
addition, the Company owns other trademarks which it utilizes in mar­
keting its products. NIKE continues to vigorously protect its trademarks
against infringement.35

The swoosh is Nike's core value, and it becomes more crucial as product
differentiation increases. The power of the swoosh unites a product line gov­
erned by the rule of sneakerization. And as Nike expands from athletic foot­
ware to sporting goods equipment and apparel and sunglasses, the economic
importance of the swoosh logo increases. In recent years, Nike has leveraged
the power of its logo by making it the unifying centerpiece of its NIKETOWN
stores. Nike's most visible and grandiose NIKETOWN space opened in
Manhattan in 199 6 . It is already, like its precursor sister sites in Portland and NIKETOWN, Portland, Oregon.
Chicago, a significant tourist destination. The NIKETOWN spaces have been Expect to see many more.

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16 Nike C u l tu re

constructed as atrium spaces to maximize the visual display of Nike's image

along with the display of the array of Nike's 1 ,200 shoe models.o6 In the
Portland store, suspended from above is a sculpture of Nike's superstar
Michael Jordan. These spaces have been designed with sports-themed pavil­
ions or boutiques arranged around a central "town square." Each space
includes its own video backdrops and sound effects. Contributing to the
futuristic feel of NIKETOWN spaces are acrylic shoe tubes that transport the
product from the stockroom to the customer. These "glitzy stores, with climb­
ing walls and basketball courts for trying out the goods, are meant to build
the brand rather than just move products," and Nike plans to expand the
NIKETOWN concept to various global cities.o?

LOGOMANIA

"Brand consciousness" of Nike's "global power brand" now extends "any­

where there is the faint possibility of a growing middle class.":1R To get a
sense of how people value and rank their brand preferences, survey
researchers routinely ask them to make lists. One recent study by Teenage
Research Unlimited asked 200 teenagers for their top twenty brands, regardless
of product category. The results cast light on how important logos or signs
are to the athletic footwear industry. Out of the top 20 , the survey reveals
-
that five are in the athletic footwear industry Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Fila and
Converse. Of all the brands to choose from, including Coke, Nike led the list
with a whopping 38% of teens ranking it number one. Guess jeans came in a
distant second at 17%.:19
In 199 3, Nike spent roughly $250 million on advertising, marketing and
promoting the Nike brand; by 1997 that total had grown to $978 million. The
visibility and power of Nike's swoosh sign has been largely a function of Nike
being the current leader in a competitive advertising system geared to pro­
ducing and maintaining the highest sign values. We call it sign value to pin­
point the primary product of consumer-goods advertising today. In this
following section we will briefly discuss what we mean by sign values, noting
how they are constructed and circulated, and how the competition between
brands for recognition and dominance has led to what we call sign wars:o
The swoosh logo was born of business necessity. By 1971 Phil Knight's
fledgling shoe distribution company, named Blue Ribbon Sports, had grown to
the point where its product line consisted of a haphazard combination of
Japanese knockoffs of German running shoes (Adidas) and a few shoes of
BRS's own design. But it had also outgrown its relationship as exclusive dis­
tributor of Onitsuka Tiger, its Japanese shoe supplier, and Knight engineered
"a partnership with Nissho-Iwai, a large Japanese sogo sosha (trading com­
pany). Nissho agreed to contract independent manufacturing sources (Nihon­
Koyo and Nippon Rubber) for the BRS line of shoes."41 In 1971 , Knight decided

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Sudd e n ly the Swoosh is Everywhere 17

Nike is in their fifth version of its

logo. First came the swoosh with
Nike written in script across it.
Second was the swoosh with
NIKE in caps above it. This was
replaced by a box around the sec­
ond version and, currently, there is
the swoosh alone. According to
-
Liz Dolan, the swoosh only cor­
porate logo was unplanned. The
swoosh-only design had been put
on a hat for Jim Courier, the tennis
he needed a logo and a change of name as he moved to market his own player, during the 1992
brand of shoes. Knight asked a Portland State University arts student named Wimbledon tournament. But
Carolyn Davidson to design a "stripe, or logo, for the side of the shoe. Courier had been eliminated early
in the tournament, and gave his
Because Adidas used stripes as its logo, all athletic shoe logos, no matter
hat to fellow Nike athlete, Andre
what shape, were called stripes."42 Davidson's fee for the task was $35 . Agassi, who proceeded to an upset
Knight asked her to try to make it suggest 'movement' and 'speed,' make win of the championship.
it visible from a distance, while also functionally contributing to the shoe Afterward, Nike was besieged
support system. At the time, the 'stripes' on other athletic shoes served a with calls asking where can I get
that hat? Suddenly, the Nike
structural or functional purpose: the "distinctive three stripes" on Adidas
decision-makers realized that,
shoes held the upper and lower soles together while the Puma stripe sup­
thanks to the power of television,
ported the ball of the foot. By contrast, despite Knight's desire for something viewers could readily recognize the
comparable to the Adidas stripe, the swoosh was from the outset strictly a significance of just the swoosh.
symbolic and aesthetic accouterment.43 Knight and his associates did not Subsequently Nike signed all of
particularly like the design, but half-heartedly accepted it because they had its correspondence simply
swoosh. Thefifth incarnation was
nothing better. Knight reportedly said "I don't love it. But I think it will
prompted by concern that the
grow on me."44 Nike insiders would come to call it the swoosh, so the story swoosh had become overused,
goes, after a customer placed an order for the shoe with the "swooshie fiber" Nike now signs its ads with
on the side. Shortly thereafter, the story of the Nike name change bears a 'Nike' printed in a cursive font.
striking similarity to the birth of the swoosh logo. Knight had been toying
with the name Dimension Six, but nobody else liked that name. The pres­
sure for a new name was spurred by a printer's deadline to put a name -
any name - on the side of the shoe boxes that were being made. When an
employee named Jeff Johnson came up with the name Nike, after the winged
Greek goddess of victory, it too was met with a lack of either recognition or
enthusiasm. "I guess we'll go with the Nike thing for now," said Knight. "I
really don't like any of them [the names], but I guess that's the best of the
bunch. "45
The point here is that initially, the swoosh logo was an empty vessel - a
visual marker that lacked any intrinsic meaning. At first, people described it
as a fat checkmark. The swoosh has acquired meaning and value through
repeated association with other culturally meaningful symbols. By placing
the swoosh in the same frame with Michael Jordan, Nike was able to draw
upon the value and meaning of Michael Jordan as a star basketball player.
The meaning of "Air" Jordan was transferred to the meaning of "Air" Nike.

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18 Nike C u ltu re

Only through a process of abstracting and "emptying out" the meanings of

other cultural images did the Nike logo become invested with the value and
meaning it possesses today. Today, that fat checkmark is not only instantly
identifiable, it has also come to inspire devotion. Today, the Nike swoosh is
so 'rich' in meaning that it is now capable of extending value to other objects
and persons. In 199 1 Nike was inducted into the American Marketing
Association's Hall of Fame because its ads "have had a dramatic impact on
our lifestyle, becoming enshrined as American icons."46
These days, concerns about selecting the right logo may seem ho-hum
since every company that wants to compete in this arena must be able to
compete at the level of logo recognition. Companies like Nike, Reebok, Adidas,
Fila, Starter, and Champion all acknowledge that branded sales are essential to
their growth, and each competes to try to convince viewers that they want to
wear the company name or symbol. David Chandler, vice-president of Reebok
International's apparel marketing, observes that consumers are "looking for
brands that mesh with their personalities."47 So the name of the game is to
invest one's logo with recognizability and culturally desirability. To a cer­
tain extent, consumers (wearers) become advertisements themselves for the
brand logo they have chosen to display.
Think about it. Everyone knows the name of Nike's icon is the swoosh,
but do you know what Reebok calls its icon? They call it the vector. Though
historically Nike's chief competitor, Reebok's advertising has not established a
similarly viable or coherent sign or logo. However, it is instructive to note
that Reebok advertising circa 199 5 shifted to emulate the Nike concentration on
the logo. Indeed, Reebok advertising has become notable for its attention to
what might be called Sign-work. Reebok's commercials from the 199 6 Summer
The vector. Olympics each ended by turning the vector on its side so that it could double
as the symbol for the Olympic torch. We could not invent a better example of
a company trying to leverage the value of one meaning system (the
Olympics) to add value to its brand symbol.
As the stakes of logo identification and sign value escalate so too does
the amount of energy that goes into both promoting these signs and pro­
tecting the value of those logos. There is certainly nothing in the following
headline that would make us blink twice: "Athletic wear companies are
pumping billions into the world's sports tank, fueling a proliferation of logos
Olympic sponsorship transformed in places such as high school gyms and Olympic victory stands; draped in
into sign value: vector plus logos and letters."48 And yet it speaks to a fundamental penetration of more
Olympic torch.
and more social spaces by the discourse of signs and logos. At the same time
that companies are investing to cover our consciousness in logos that seem
genuine, we have also begun to hear a new phrase bandied about - the logo
police. They were at the 199 6 Summer Olympics to make sure everyone fol­
lowed the logo rules, and "logo cops prowl the sidelines in the NFL, pro­
tecting a $3 billion licensing business by making sure everyone is wearing the
right cap. A player caught wearing the wrong logo faces a $5 ,000 fine,

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Su dden ly the Swoosh is Eve rywh ere 19

$100 ,000 if he does it in the Super Bowl."·" We've heard anecdotal stories of
Nike going to great lengths to protect the value of its logo, such as squads
of enforcers who tour Asian factories to guard against counterfeiters.

THE GREAT AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY:

" JUST DO IT"

It's the only company that has successfully managed to sell a way of life
with its products.oo

We believe that Nike's overall image - its commodity sign - is less about a
particular commodity than the corporation itself. Nike has constructed itself
as an icon that embraces a larger image system that possesses both a phi­
losophy and a personality.
Since signs and icons do not exist in a vacuum, but in relation to one
another, it is important to contrast Nike's sign representations with those of
competitors such as Reebok and Converse and Fila and Asics and Adidas and
British Knights and L.A. Gear and New Balance. Perhaps Nike's greatest adver­
tising accomplishment has been its ability to attach the aura of a philoso­
phy to its name via its sign and slogan. One aspect of the Nike philosophy
emerges from how its ads communicate a philosophic identity embedded
in the codes of its photographic style and tone. Yet, no serious deconstruction
skills are required to recognize Nike's basic philosophy in its most frequently
stated maxim: "Just do it." Nike says its slogan "is cemented in consumers'
minds as a rallying cry to get off the couch and play sports." More than just
a slogan, "Just do it" receives almost daily mass media interpretation and
affirmation. For example, the July 1 3, 1995 USA Today carried what seemed
to be a press release: "Sponsor finds epitome of do it attitude." As Nike
entered yet another sport, IndyCar racing, it sponsored race car driver Scott
Pruett, in the Molson Indy in Toronto. Pruett, the story tells us, "was cho­
sen for the 'Just do it' attitude he showed in recovering from a 1990 crash
that left him with a broken back, knees and ankles. Ten months later, he won
an International Race of Champions event at Daytona Beach, Florida." Pruett
is quoted that "the values instilled in me when I was young - determina­
tion and perseverance - were the strengths I relied on during my recovery
and return." A corresponding Nike campaign will "showcase people who
have triumphed against disabilities through athletics."sl
Why does "Just do it" resonate with so many people? It speaks to the
restraint and inhibition in everyday life that keep people from the experi­
ence of transcendence. Nike provides a language of self-empowerment - no
matter who you are, no matter what your physical, economic or social limi­
tations. Transcendence is not just possible, it is waiting to be called forth.
Take control of your life and don't submit to the mundane forces that can

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20 Nike C u lture

so easily weigh us down in daily life. No more rationalizations and

justifications, it's time to act. The phrase is wonderfully ambiguous. It hails
all of us about any action that we have avoided, put off, or rationalized. The
Nike philosophy challenges us to confront, and hopefully, to overcome bar­
riers. Specific images encapsulate and honor this, such as the culminating
scene in a spirited Nike ad called "A Time of Hope" in which a wheel chair
marathoner exultantly rips opens his shirt as he crosses the finish line to
reveal the superman insignia tattooed on his chest.52
Such moral lessons are hardly new to our culture: grit, determination
and effort are frequently cast as enabling us to conquer all obstacles in our
way. Nothing touches the heart of traditional American ideologies of indi­
vidual achievement more than sports conceptualized as a level playing field
for competition, because when the playing field is level, the individual may
prevail. Contemporary advertising is replete with what we call motivation
ads. Frequently these motivational stories rely on athletic metaphors. Texaco
draws on the equivalence between the performance of Olympic athletes and
the performance of its gasoline. Champion's solemn inspirational lyrics state
that "it takes a little more to never say never." This genre of ads proclaim if
you have "what is deep inside" and are willing to go the extra mile of hard
work, you can become the best. If this ideological appeal is so pervasive,
why then does Nike's construction of it seem to stand out above the rest?
We suspect the answer lies in the ___domain of aesthetic style and expression:
it's not just what they say, but how they say it.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 . B.G. Brooks, "Swoosh, the mark of success in '90s," Rocky Mountain News, October 1 3
1 995, p. 12B.
2. Cited in Bethan Brookes and Peter Madden, "The Globe-Trotting Sports Shoe,"
www.oneworld.org/christian_aid/global_shoe.html: Christian Aid, 1995.
3. With no major competitor to challenge its commanding market position, Nike's rela­
tionship with some retailers grew strained. Retailers who felt overly dependent on
Nike began rooting for another shoe company to contest Nike's market share. Jennifer
Steinhauer, "Nike is in a league of its own, with no big rival, it calls the shots in athletic
shoes," New York Times, June 7 1997, p. 21: 3.
4. Leigh Gallagher, "Industry retailers see Swoosh as double-edged sword; Nike Inc. 's
dominance in the athletic footwear industry," Sporting Goods Business, April 1996, p. 8.
5. Jeff Mangum, "Wall Street heard a swoosh Tuesday," USA Today, July 10 1996, p. 3B.
6. Michael Lev, "Nike shoe obsession stirs up trouble," The Oregonian, November 1 1996,
p. B1.
7. Jeff Manning, "Goal! Nike signs on Brazil's soccer team," The Oregonian, December 6
1996, p. Cl, C6.
8. Linda Himelstein, "The swoosh heard round the world," Business Week, May 12 1997,
p . 76ff.
9. See Stuart Hall, "Brave new world," Socialist Review 21, January-March (1991),
pp. 57-64.

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Sud d e n ly the Swoosh i s Everywh ere 21

10. David Harvey, The COllditiolls of PostlllOdemiltj (Oxford U niversity Press, New York,
1989), p. 1 59.
1 1 . Miguel Korzeniewicz, "Commodity chains and ma rketing strategies: Nike and the
global athletic footwear industry," in Gary Gereffi and M iguel Korzeniewicz (eds),
COl1ll1lodity Chains Ilnd Global CapitalislIl (Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 1 994),
p. 249.
1 2 . Quoted in "The post-national economy: goodbye widget, hello Nikc. (The new Nikc
economy: world without borders; part 1 )," Far Enstem Ecollolllic nevicw, 1 59, (August
29 1996), p. 5.
13. Steven Goldman, Roger Nagel and Kenneth Preiss, "Why Seiko has 3,000 watch
styles," The New York Tillles, October 9 1994, p. F9.
1 4. Alan Goldstein, "Illtel trots out new products to stimulate market for PCs," The
Oregollian, August 18 1996, p. E l l .
1 5 . NIKE, INC. 1996 Annual Report on Form lO-K, p. 1 . All publicly traded companies
are required by law to make the l O- K public filing with the Security & Exchange
Commission.
16. Korzeniewicz, "Commodity chains," p. 247.
1 7. "The post-national economy," p. 5; Henny Sender, "Sprinting to the forefront," Far
Enstel'l1 Econoillic neViell', 1 59 (August 1 1996), p. 50.
18. Korzeniewicz, "Commodity chains," p. 252.
19. In Mark Clifford, " N ike Roars: All American, made in Asia," Far Enstem Econolllic
neview, November 5 1992, p. 56.
20. Cited in Richard Barnet and John Cavenaugh, Globnl 01'1'171115: IlIIperial Corpol'lltiolls nlld
the New World Order (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1 994), p. 328.
2 1 . The exception to the rule here is Nell' Balallce, although even New Bnlallce has some
of its shoes manufactured in Chinese factories and gets a l l of its component parts
made in Asian facilities. Nell' Balallce claims that on average 75% of labor costs go to US
workers. New Bnll7llce has been able to keep some of its production in the US by lim­
iting the number of styles and colors of shoe models, but it has a lso paid a price for this
in terms of higher costs and lower profitability. See Jeff Manning, "The road less trav­
eled," The Oregollian, December 1 1 996, p. D6.
22. Brookes and Madden, "The globe trotting sports shoe;" Anita Chan, " Boot camp at
the shoe factory: where Taiwanese bosses drill Chinese workers to make sneakers for
American joggers," Washillgtoll Post, N ovember 3 1 996, p. C l .
23. Sidney Schanberg, "Six cents a n hour," Life (June 1 996), pp. 38-42, 45-8.
24. Donaghu and Barff and also Dicken do detailed mappings of the subcontracting net­
work. Gereffi and Korzeniewicz offer some sense of the raw materials supply net­
work as well as the production, export and marketing network. See M ichael T.
Donaghu and Richard Barff, "Nike just did it: international subcontracting and flexi­
bility in athletic footwear production." negiollal Stlldies, 24 (December 1990), pp. 537-52;
Peter Dicken, Global Shift, 2nd edn (Guilford, New York, 1992); Gary Gereffi and Miguel
Korzeniewicz, "Commodity chains and footwear exports in the semi-periphery," in
William M. Martin (ed.), SCllli-Peripheral Stntes ill tile World ECOIIOllllj (Greenwood Press,
Westport, CT, 1990), pp. 45-69.
25. Researchers at the global emerging markets fund of Robert Fleming uncovered what
they call " N ike Indicator." " Analysis of Nike's production pattern found that every
country in which the company had produced sneakers had seen high, long-term eco­
nomic growth. " The report observes that Nikc management selects its country sites
not only because of low labor costs, but also uses criteria that assess political stability,
quality of l abor, infrastructure, government policy, customs du ties, and quotas.
Researchers claimed that when Nike departed from a country a fter having produced
shoes there, that "Wage rates go up because workers have learned skills (like going on

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22 Nike C u lture

strike). Nike's departure indicates that the country is at a new stage of development."
See Andrew Gill, " Buying emerging markets? Use the sneaker indicator," Reu ters,
1997. The migration of the Taiwanese and the South Koreans up the food chain of
footwear production does in fact lend credence to the argument that Nike's presence in
an Asian locality leads to subsequent economic development in the region. The argu­
ment is that Nike provides the kind of light manufacturing capacity that paves the
way for heavy ind ustry. This can be seen in the formation of Korean and Taiwanese
capital, but look at the form this model of development actually takes - authoritar­
ian relations, the use of police and military forces to enforce labor peace. The corollary
of this argument that shoe assembly offers a steppingstone to development is that
Korean and Taiwanese capital now aggressively seeks to expand at the expense of
civil liberties and human rights.
26. An Asian diplomat quoted in Edward Gargan, "An Indonesian asset is also a liability:'
Tile Neil' York Tillles, March 1 6 1996, p. 18.
27. Andrew Young Report, june 24 1 997, http: / / Si1'00sll /intercom /anthony/ findings.htm.
"Nike responds to Ambassador Young's Report on the Nike Code o{Conduct," June 24
1 997, http: / / Sil'oosh /intercom/anthony / response.htm.
28. jeff Manning, "Nike cuts 4 factories from team," Tile Oregonial1, December 1 1 997, p. A I .
29. Gary Gereffi, "The organization o f buyer-driven global commodity chains: how US
retailers shape overseas production networks," in Gary Gereffi and Miguel
Korzeniewicz (eds), COllllnoditIf Chains {JIld Global Capitalislll (Greenwood Press,
Westport, CT, 1 994), pp. 98, 104.
30. See Nike, Inc. 1997 Annual Report, p. 38.
3 1 . David Moberg, "just doing it: inside Nikc's new-age sweatshop," LA Weekly, June 1 9
1997.
32. The most widely reported incident of abuse came from Vietnam where a female
Korean foreman beat fifteen workgroup ("team") leaders with a shoe sole to demon­
strate her displeasure with their sewing (see Adam Schwarz, "Culture shock: Korean
employers irk Vietnamese workers," Far Ea51em Econolllic I?('view, 1 59 (August 22
1 9%), p. 63). CBS News claimed the phrase "to Nikc" has entered everyday usage in
Vietnam as a verb that means to take out one's frustrations.
33. jeff Danziger, "The World According to Nike. USA - No work, $150 shoes. Indonesia -
Lots of work, no shoes," Christian Sciellce MOl1itor, june 1 8 1996, p. 20.
34. Korzeniewicz, "Commodity circuits," 1994, p. 261 .
35. Form 1 0-K for NIKE Inc. filed on 1 997-08-30.
36. Ian Fisher, "Nike opens its glitziest retail store yet in New York," The Oregol1ian,
November 3 1996, p. D2.
37. Himelstein, "The swoosll heard round the world, " p. 70; Marianne Wilson, "NikeTown
goes back to the future: dazzling effects and futuristic looks bring new creative spark,"
Chain Store Age ExeClltii'e 67 (February 199 1 ), pp. 82-3; Jennifer Pellet, " NikeTowl1 takes
off," Discount Merchandiser, October 1 991, pp 56--7; Rachel Spevack and Valerie Seckler,
"Innovations runneth over at NikeTOil'n New York, " Daily Neil'S Record, October 31
1996, p. 5.
38. Donald Katz, /IISt 00 II: the Nike Spirit in the Corporate World (Random House, New
York, 1994), p. 198.
39. Laurie McDonald, "Selling high tech; marketing footwear," Footiumr News, May 20
1996, p. 1 .
40. Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Sign Wars (Guilford, New York, 1996).
41. Michael Donaghu and Richard Barff, "Nike just did it: intemational subcontracting and
flexibility in athletic footwear production," Regional Studies, 24 (December 1990), p. 541.
42. J . B. Strasser and Laurie Becklund, Si1'Oosh: Tile Unauthorized Storlj of Nike and the Mell
WllO Pla lfCd Tilere (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1991), p. 1 25.

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Sud d e n ly the Swoosh i s Everywh ere 23

43. Korzeniewicz, "Commodity chains, " p. 254. Davidson could not find a way to recon­
cile support and movement as Knight had instructed. "Support was static she
explained, movement was the opposite." (Strasser and Becklund, SWOOSII, p. 1 26).
Instead, she recommended the shoe support be included in the shoe itself and the
mark and the stripe be used to convey movement.
44. Strasser and Becklund, Swoosh, p. 1 26.
45. Ibid., p. 1 29.
46. Katz, Jusl 00 /1, p . l S I .
47. Quoted i n Brenda Lloyd, "Activewear firms banking on increased brand interest;
Super Show," Daily News Record, February 13 1996, p. 4.
48. Bob Baum, "Athletic wear companies are pumping billions into the world's sports
tank, fueling a proli feration of logos in places such as high school gyms and Olympic
victory stands," Chicago Tribulle, May 12 1996, p. We.
49. Ibid.
50. Joachim Schroder, purchasing director for Germany's Karstadt department stores cited
in Himelstein, "The s(('oosh heard round the world," 1 996, p. 76ff.
5 l . Beth Tuschak, "Pruett lures Nike on board at Toronto: sponsor finds epitome of "do
it" attitude," USA Todalj, July 1 3 1995, p. We.
52. One of the first "Just do it" ads i n 1 988 also featured a wheelchair athlete, Craig
Blanchette. Like Levi's and the Balik of Al1Ierica, Nikc's usage of a wheelchair athlete
points to his/her signifying role in the cosmology of the emerging global capitalist
system. The wheelchair person now signifies an inclusivity of spirit in a new stage of
capitalism that ostensibly has removed all barriers of entry into markets and compe­
titions.

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2.
JUST METACOMMUNI CATE
IT

The way Nike has been able t o make the swoosh stand out involves more
than simply signing the right superstars. This chapter looks at how Nike
developed the value of the swoosh by the attitude it projects, by the tones
of voice it uses to address viewers, and by the way it appropriates and play­
fully reworks cultural imagery. But first, we want to briefly introduce our
terminology for discussing advertising.
We view advertising as a system of sign value production. Stripped of
its hype and glamour, advertising fw1Ctions as a cultural mechanics for assem­
bling and reinforcing the value of brandname icons. TV advertising, in par­
ticular, aims at building brandname identity, brandname differentiation, and
brandname equity. We prefer the term commodity sign as a theoretical han­
dle for talking about a brandname logo or icon. Advertisers try to link a prod­
uct value with a cultural value to produce a sign value.1 What would a shoe
without a brand look like? What would a brand without an image be?
We could not have stacked the deck with a better example of this than
Nike and its swoosh. Articles about Nike in the popular press almost invariably
mention seeing the Nike logo plastered everywhere. "Other than Coca-Cola, I
can't think of another company that has managed its brand as well as Nike,"
said Steve Gelsi of Brandweek Magazine. 'They have made the swoosh, sports
and athletes inseparable."2
Advertisements are structured to boost the value of a product brand
name (a commodity) by attaching it to images that possess social and cultural
value (sign value). This can be written as a simple formula: brand name
commodity + meaning of image = commodity sign. As the advertising indus­
try has matured, advertisers have tried to devise the most efficient method­
ologies for assembling this currency of images and brands. Thus far,
efficiency has boiled down to precise semiotic equations, into which dis­
connected signifiers (images) and signifieds (meanings) are fed, broken up,
and then recombined to create new equations of meaning. Examples of this
grimly mechanical process of cultural engineering dot the television screen

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J ust Metaco m m u n icate It 25

Chevrolet truck + vital social relations in the American heartland ''The Heartbeat of A merica "/
Chevrolet logo

and magazine pages. Taking the Chevrolet example above, the flag and the
dog are signifiers, while the vitality of the American heartland is a signi­
fied, and the Chevrolet logo and slogan is the cumulative Sign.
Consumer advertising works by removing meanings from context, and
then recontextualizes those meanings within the framework of the ad itself.
When viewers decipher ads they routinely accept the premise that signifiers
and signifieds can be decontextualized, split up, and respliced arbitrarily to
other signifiers and signifieds, similarly abstracted from their context.
Contemporary advertising traffics endlessly in decontextualized, free­
floating signifiers, combining and recombining them without limit.
This is the cycle of commodity signs: they are concocted, maxed out,
and then disposed of to make way for the new fresh and different sign of
today! And in a few years, some will be recycled and labeled as "retro." In
the digital age, this process of slicing, dicing, and remixing signifiers and
signifieds has not only accelerated, it has become the primary axis for com­
modity culture.
Taken as a whole, this circulation of signs and images in advertising
has become a central feature of contemporary capitalism. But even as the
circulation of images and signs became more and more pivotal to the econ­
omy in the 1980s, significant viewer resistance surfaced. Over the years, a
growing proportion of television viewers grew weary, and wary, of the for­
mulas devised by advertisers to keep the sign value assembly line rolling
along. By the late 1980s, the cliched formulas of advertiSing became so tire­
some and tedious that viewers were clicking away with their remote con­
trols. The body-politic of television audiences grew cynical and disbelieving.
ironically, the semiotic equation for
In response, leading-edge advertising agencies tried to find an aesthetic and Guess is all formula. Clothing +
a tone of voice that could distance themselves from the mainstream treat­ female sexuality framed in artsy
ment of all cultural content as disposable. In so doing, a self-reinforcing loop black and white photography =

of cynicism has been engaged. Guess.

Standardization of production in industry after industry has brought us
into the age of parity products. From cars to sneakers, standardization has
made it difficult to differentiate products. In today's consumer-goods markets
parity products require signs and logos that add both difference and value to
them. In the footwear industry, everything depends on having a potent, but
differentiated, image. We can state bluntly that Nike captured a larger market

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26 Nike C u lture

share of the sneaker industry than did Reebok between 1987 and 1993 because
they harnessed the power of Michael Jordan's image to better effect than
could Reebok with their competing stream of imagery. We call these battles
between brands sign wars.
As these sign wars intensified across the landscape of advertising, they
have had an unintended side effect: they create cluttered image markets.
And clutter undermines the very goal advertisers seek - differentiation of
image. This tendency towards clutter and over-saturation drives advertis­
ers to relentlessly scour the cultural landscape in search of fresh ways to
stand out. As their sign wars become more pitched, and advertisers exhaust
one category of signification after another in their obsessive hunt for prof­
itable images, they push an increasingly rapid turnover of images. By the
1990s, this competition left no cultural stone unturned. When there is no
clear way of differentiating products or even positioning strategies, all that is
left is the style of signification, and this is where advertisers' competition
turned. Style of signification can be varied through adjustments in the image­
production process - e.g., tone-of-voice, color or black and white, wild new
colors and tints, overexposure, fonts that mutate, split screens, quick cuts,
no edits, airbrushing, no depth-of-field, etc. Nike advertising sets itself apart
in this field of competition by the way it addresses viewers, by a distinctive
photographic style, and by the way it appropriates and reworks moments of
pop culture, positioning viewers as subjects who are media literate and capa­
ble of recognizing the commercial intent of advertising.

APPROPRIATION

Advertising works by appropriating, or drawing on, meanings from other

referent systems. Any meaning system can serve as a referent for this appro­
priation: a song, a subculture, a celebrity, a television show, a piece of art,
and so on, ad infinitum. While the obvious referent system for Nike is the
celebrity athlete, Nike ads are also rich in allusions to popular culture. Wieden
& Kennedy ad writers scour the cultural landscape looking for materials to
weave into their ads. They have appropriated textual fragments ranging
from the famous (Beatles) to the obscure (Buffalo Tom), from children's nurs­
ery rhymes such as "The Cow Jumped Over the Moon" and "Humpty
Dumpty," to Slam magazine ("The In Your Face Basketball Magazine"), to
musical genres of opera, punk, alternative, and gospel, to specific songs like
"Search and Destroy" by Iggy Pop and the Stooges or a riff taken from
Thelonius Monk. The scavenging might include quotes from Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Sun-tzu, or the film persona of Dennis Hopper and Spike Lee,
or the media celebrity of Denis Leary, James Carville, and Tyra Banks. And
let's not forget references to classic film scenes lifted from She's Gatta Have It,
Beverly Hills Cop, Malcolm X, and Patton.

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J ust Metacom m u n icate I t 27

The flow of meaning through ads is neverfinite o r perfectly pre­ women's basketball team. Part of a series entitled "We are the
dictable, but always fluid and mutating. The appropriation of games we play," the ad consists of Ruthie performing acappella,
subcultural expressions tends to be layered - indigenous forms with herfamily offscreen calling out the response. From a large
are interwoven with commodityforms. When this occurs, sub­ minister's family in small-town Mississippi, Ruthie Bolton­
ordinate cultural meanings leak into dominant cultural mean­ Holifield and herfamily sing together, both in church and at
ings and vice-versa. While advertising incorporates and home. This songjoins the social interplay ofcall and response,
domesticates subordinate cultural forms, making them serve characteristic ofAfrican American religion with the chant form
rather than resist dominant ideologies, the lower social strata of the "jodie cadence" sung during military basic training
may invert and contest privileged cultural codes. The complex drills. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Ruthie Bolton­
interweavings prompted by the workings of commodity culture Holifield calls out in song. "Mighty Ruthie!" From the other
can be observed in a 1 997 Nike adfeaturing Ruthie Bolton­ side of the room, off camera, a chorus of voices echo her,
Holifield, a member of the victorious 1996 US Olympic "Mighty Ruthie!"

Mighty Ruthie.
Mighty Ruthie.
She is infantry.
She is infantry.
Servin' our country.
Servin' our country.
I won a gold medal.
I won a gold medal.
We are number one.
We are number one.
Number one, the USA.
Number one, the USA.

"Mightl) Ruthie" offers a glimpse into the vibrancy of appropriation does not stop here. Once broadcast, this cultural
grassroots culture in the US - spontaneous, genuine, and production enters into a new phase. There are already reports of
uncontrived. This is probably why Nike placed its seal over it. young girls mimicking "Mighty Ruthie," adapting the chant
But of course, the circulation of culture and the meanings of and its meanings to their own purposes.

Appropriation is the bread and butter of advertising. Nike's style of

appropriation differs from the mainstream. Nike hails its viewers as hip,
savvy, and media literate and so it draws on texts that signify these qualities.
When Nike first brought out Spike Lee, he had completed his first full-length
film, She's Gatta Have It, but was still unknown to most television viewers,
and even fewer had reflected on the politics of his movies. Attaching the
Nike name to this hot young director, Nike constructed itself as a company
that recognizes and appreciates hipness. Nike hailed its viewers as the know­
ing few who might share an appreciation of the then-novel angle on urban
culture in Spike's work. Moreover, Nike's appropriation tends to be symbiotic:
Nike not only got a swoosh value boost for using Lee, Spike also got a boost in

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28 Nike C u lture

� - � .... - - �-- ..
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_ al _ 1.... I'cIer � ACI\. .. ln � � � � �
value after being joined to Nike.3 Recognition of Lee as the character, Mars
�$l(N IIIr.... ....,.. ___ �StMl
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""' rw � <",* ..... lIb<t.C. l" _l ...., ... t!ot-.· Blackmon, from his film also gave the viewer a sign value boost. The tex­
!I:acti.. .... 3 "_oct.. BFD � _ -r...� .. I'IhII � , ...., ... Sio:fI ....
ikUol dg � 'II .�q "' � _ ..... "" ,.,.",...... .., • •
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...eis�'....bOM"' ...WIIf- ' q.,. M"I' ...,.��.. tual allusion thus connects the signified of urban hipness to both Nike and the
�<:N�1Iolun. 'M)'
...

r... _ .., � IMt< � 'MI!oJ ...... _"..,.. I I,.. .wtDI'I!.

" . .... _� __ ... 0Ny. J1't _'
""" _ " '*'f; Woo ..-$ 'flIa!1'......, IhioI.'-<'IIl ""_; "' viewer. Wearing a product signed by the Nike swoosh completes the circle.
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--

l!>r>otul_oI."...,...� ..--....

=�@J��Si
;:. § !_. I ' �-� "'" Nike adopts texts in self-conscious ways, positioning viewers as active
readers who can appreciate how Nike ads rework original texts. Nike (really
IL�,
,

�;��=::? Wieden & Kennedy) becomes perceived as a creator of culture, and not simply
as parasite or culture-vulture advertisers that mechanically, and crassly, twist
the meaning of the reference to suit their product. Lazy approaches to appro­
priation dot the screen. One recent instance has a domestic car maker adopt­
ing a 1960s sitcom theme song called "Green Acres" because it is now a
nostalgia marker of an early exercise in intentionally bad TV. Oddly, the
theme song that signals knowledge of television history and the ability to
Slam magazine calls attention to appreciate kitsch is now being used to express a lifestyle. In contrast to such
its use in a Penny Hardaway com­ blatant appropriation, Nike took children's nursery rhymes, such as
mercial. The copy reads: "Humpty-Dumpty" and "The Cow Jumped Over the Moon" and playfully
"Did you see that?" reconstructed the stories as animated drawings set to music.
"See what? "
Narrated as a black and white animated cartoon, "The Cow Jumped
"That Nike commercial with
Penny and Litlle Penny. Nick
Over the Moon"is set to the jazzy lyrics of a song entitled "Destination
Anderson is there reading Moon." The ad opens with a cow chewing grass. The moon smacks its lips
SLAM. " and sticks out its tongue in a teasing gesture. The cow jumps at the moon,
"Yeah, I liked it when Nick but she falls short, crashes to the ground and woozily dreams a Nike swoosh.
throws it down on the table. "
"Thanks. What if J write the
Sixth Man about seeing my maga­

@
zine used as a prop in a Penny •
"
* {l
commercial? *
*
Does that have any substance?"
"No. "

)W
"Hey, man. Think about it for a If
second. It's important."
�
"Okay . . . No, that has no sub­
�
stance. "
"Really? "
"Well, let m e ask you this: don't
you think that kind of shameless
"
se/f-promotion is, like, beneath ).} I} 4'
" ';'

t�f
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you ? " 'k r" " �
"Well . . . "
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• _ _ .1.1,. _

Nike's pastiche mixes a children 's rhyme, animation, and jazz lyrics to form an original narra­
tive. In the cluttered landscape of TV advertising viewers can appreciate creative appropriation.

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J u st Metaco m m u n icate It 29

But she thus awakes with a purpose and after donning Nike sneakers, the
cow jumps over the moon, punches him in the jaw on the way past, and
floats gracefully back to earth, leaving the moon seeing "stars" and the cow
satisfied. This story is accompanied by the light and airy vocal stylings of
a female singing voice reminiscent of Peggy Lee, whose lyrics suggest a
flight of fancy, a romantic sexual interlude ("what a thrill you'll get riding on
my jet") along with a retro feel, maybe 40s, maybe 50s.
Retro draws on a vague sense of history, but then empties it out, leaving
primarily a signifier. The pleasure of viewing this ad comes from interpret­
ing the narrative twist that Nike whimsically assembles. In this case, Nike's
sign value is boosted not because of the cultural allusions per se, but by the
artful reworking of disparate cultural texts into an inventive pastiche that
requires active viewer involvement. Because the ad is surprising in both
style and content, it enables Nike to differentiate itself as a creative cultural
bricoleur.
When a cultural text is appropriated it is not only recontextualized but
also modified to meet the advertiser 's agenda. Nike used Iggy Pop and the
Stooges "Search and Destroy" as background for its commercial of Olympic
athletes. Listening to Iggy Pop perform the song in the context of a 1970s
British punk club obviously created a radically different experience with
different pleasures and meanings than listening to it in your living room as
the background for Nike's commercial during the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Though there may be a few who still hear the music as a punk anthem, this
meaning is unnecessary to accepting it as merely a hard-driving background
sound that gives an 'edge' to the images. By placing a part of a cultural text
in a new ___location, new meanings and readings appear and earlier meanings
disappear.

Transforming ideologies

What happens when the meaning of the original is radically modified to

meet the agenda of the advertiser? This is particularly problematic when
the author of the original had a political agenda. In the mid 1970s, Gil Scott­
Heron recorded what would become classic pieces of 'political' music. As
Nelson George observes on the Arista compact disc jacket, Gil Scott-Heron
"has been cutting through the crap" as a "teller of uncomfortable truths. "
Two songs stand out in Gil Scott-Heron's opus: the first, "Johannesburg,"
addressed the condition of apartheid in South Africa in 1975; the second,
called "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," was a powerful and angry
condemnation of the friendly fascism of consumerism and television as the
opiate of the masses.

You will not be able to stay home, brother.

You will not be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out.

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30 Nike C u lture

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag.

You will not be able to skip out for beer during commercials
because the revolution will not be televised.

Gil Scott-Heron's explicitly politicized music stood in stark opposition

to the larger record industry

where making records for a living is lying. Not big lies about politics, but
little lies that suggest all that is happening on this globe is kissing and
dancing. These are lies of omission that make pop music the playground
of the jive and the banal.�

The lies of omission that Nelson George refers to could equally refer
to the way advertising works. The imagery of people all over the globe
"kissing and dancing" comes from advertising, and is precisely what Nike
has positioned itself against in the majority of its advertising. And yet, a
1 995 Nike ad reprised "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with
modified lyrics now referring to the world of basketball, accompanying a
slow-motion sequence of young basketball stars playing ball in an empty
gym.
If you listened to Gil Scott-Heron in the late 1970s, you did so because
you embraced his politics of opposition to capitalist America and its allies in
the capitalist world-system, or you embraced his reading of the politics of
mass culture. In this song he continuously juxtaposed the project of revo­
lutionary change against the slogans of well-being drawn from commodity
culture.

The revolution will not be right back after a message about a White
tornado, White Knight, or White people. You will not have to worry
about a dove in your bedroom, the tiger in your tank, or the giant in
your toilet bowl . . .
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will not put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution wili not be televised.

Only lingering memories of this cultural politics are aroused by the

Nike appropriation and rendition of this song. Younger viewers, in particular,
were probably less likely to make the connections to the political-economy of
racism that Scott-Heron so eloquently rapped about. Still, though watered
down, the song, recorded as a rap, conveys a tone of resistance against the
power of that nebulous force called television. To make matters even more
complex, Nike does appropriate the song to make a critical reflective state­
ment about the hype of commerce applied to sports.

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J u st Metaco m m u n i c a te It 31

You will not be able to change the channel

you will not be able to catch the highlights on the evening news, enjoy it on tape delay
or adjust the contrast
because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be led by Jason King, Jimmy Jackson, Eddie Jones, Joe Smith
and Kevin Garnett
but it will not be followed by post-game up-close-and-personal interviews
because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution is not fantastic.

The revolution will not givefront-row seats to celebrities.
The revolution will not refrain from chest bumping.
The revolution will not begin with a laser show or a mascot or some sort of small
trampoline.
The revolution will not be televised, ironically, the revolution to which
the revolution will not be televised. Nike refers must be televised for
the talents of these young athletes
And the revolution will not fail.
to be transformed into Nike sign
For as itfulfills the unfulfilled promise of Hank Gathers and Fred Wilson. value.
The revolution is about basketball
and basketball is the truth.

In contrast to those who cheapen sport by turning it into a circus spec­

tacle, Nike positions itself as a lover of sport in its pure form - like you the
viewer, an appreciator of the skills of a new generation of athletes. When
Nike appropriates the tone of the original music poem, they adopt a sneering
voice against the corrupting influence of television on sport and the crass
commercialization engaged by the NBA with its spectacle of laser shows,
mascots and cheesy trampoline stunts. At the same time, Nike positions itself
with the Young Turks and against middle class codes of decorum that would
restrict viscerally spontaneous displays of boasting - "the revolution will
not refrain from chest-bumping."

IIWinning isn 't everything . . . cha, cha, cha ll

In Jean
Baudrillard's view, much of what we think we know about the con­
temporary world comes to us via the "simulacra" of the mass media. This
"simulacra" is based on the distinction between a real world "out there"
and a set of appearances governed by codes. In the simulacra the latter dis­
places the former and we gauge our notions of what is real by the codes
that supposedly represent it. The term "simulation" suggests that distinc­
tions between the original (the real) and the image (the representation) have
become more and more hazy.s A recent set of Nike commercials revolves
around actor-comedian Jerry Stiller's impersonation of Vince Lombardi com­
menting on NFL football in 1996. The musings by the ghost of Lombardi are

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32 Nike C u lture

actually a pretext for lavishing praise on Nike-signed NFL football players:

Brett Favre, Deion Sanders, Barry Sanders, and Steve Young. In the adver­
tising industry, the Lombardi ads are known as "entertainment" ads. The
Lombardi campaign replaced Nike's previous football campaign with Dennis
Hopper playing an obsessive former referee drawn from a type of character
that Hopper has played in films.
Lombardi signifies a traditional work ethic. When it came to winning,
Lombardi was a no-nonsense coach known for his dedication to hard work,
discipline, and iron will. In this series of commercials Nike constructs
Lombardi as a traditionalist who can still recognize talent and has a deep
knowledge of the game. Nike appropriates Lombardi as an icon of sports
purism who is anti-spectacle. While "Lombardi" recognizes the greatness of
the Nike athletes, the comedy in these ads expresses disdain for the techno­
logical apparatus of the spectacle. In each ad the ghost of Lombardi pokes fun
at scoreboards with applause signs or helmets equipped with headphones.

Hey, get a load of this.

They put a radio in Steve Young's helmet.
Who do they think is playin' quarterback, Buck Rogers ?
What are you going to tell a guy like Young he doesn't already know?
Hey Steve, you know that ball you're runnin' around with?
Well, toss it to Rice for Pete's sake.
Next thing, some knucklehead will want to hang an applause sign in the end zone
to let the crowd know when to cheer.

The no-nonsense, all-business approach of Lombardi the authoritarian

taskmaster has been dispatched in favor of a laid-back attitude towards
the cartoon-style posturing of athletes like Neon-Deion Sanders: "If you
ask me this Deion kid isn't showin' off, he's just havin' fun." Whoops, hav­
ing fun was definitely verboten for Lombardi, and any player, especially a
black player, who showboated and celebrated like Sanders does for the
cameras, would have been off Lombardi's team in the blink of an eye.6
Here, the ideological core of Lombardi has been hollowed out, and we are
left with Lombardi's simulation. Appearance, dress, and mannerisms are
copied as closely as possible, so that the look and the tone of Lombardi
Deion dances in the end zone: can now endorse what he opposed. This campaign exemplifies how appro­
"Cha, cha, cha." priation cements a regime of simulation. What has been appropriated is
not the biography of the man himself, but rather the media representations
of him.
Like most Nike ads, these end with the swoosh as a signature. In the
Lombardi ads, the signature swoosh takes on a pigskin texture. Stamping
this swoosh across the scene of the simulated Lombardi commentaries
reminds viewers of the playful, tongue-in-cheek attitude of these ads. This
brings us to the subject of metacommunication. By the mid 1990s, most

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J u st Meta c om m u n icate It 33

viewers in the US know the swoosh sign so well, that when the swoosh sig­
nature appears at the end it carries a lot of cultural baggage. Here, the meta­
communication suggests a sensibility of playful irreverence, induding
irreverence towards inflated myths and legends like Lombardi. Is Nike
pulling our chains here? Well, yes and no.

TONE OF VOICE: METACOMMUNICATION AND A s "Lombardi" jokes about Barry

Sanders' lost shoe, the pigskin
SUBTEXT
swoosh stamps the frame.

It is no secret that Nike's success in building up the popularity and value of its
swoosh icon has been based on how it has presented celebrity superstars -
such as Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, Andre Agassi, Michael Johnson, Lisa
Leslie, and Tiger Woods - whom it has under contract. But Nike has amplified
the value of their image by the attitude they project, and the way in which
it addresses viewers. The attitude it projects is bound up in the ways that
Nike metacommunicates with viewers.
The concept of metacommunication refers to shared, but usually
unstated, taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of communica­
tion itself. It is communication about communication. Gregory Bateson
defined metacommunication as the level of communication where "the sub­
ject of discourse is the relationship between the speakers."7 Though these
assumptions are generally unspoken, in daily life we may monitor this level
of communication by tone of voice, or facial gesture, or body language. Only
when we notice a split between this level and "the content level" or the
report portion of a message does our attention become focused on the emo­
tional politics of metacommunication.
In Nike's ads, a recurring subtext concerns the relationship between
the advertiser and the viewer. Indeed, sometimes the subject of the com­
mercial is not the shoe at all, or what it can do, but rather a self-reflection
about the world of other television ads that daily assault viewers with a
mantra of consumption based on false assumptions. The most conspicu­
ous false assumption that ads position viewers to make concerns the sug­
gestion that products can make the viewer equivalent to the model (or
spokesperson) shown in the ad. This is one of those assumptions that most
viewers know to be untrue, but whose seductive powers repeatedly lure
them back.
Being positioned to play out this assumption for the benefit of adver­
tisers eventually prompts anger among a portion of viewers. Nike ads
recognize this anger, and its correlate, resistance to listening, and have built
its advertising strategies around denying such assumptions. Hence, a key
relationship in Nike ads is between Nike as an advertising voice and the
spectator 's sense of identity. This relationship takes place primarily as
metacommunication.

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34 Nike C u lture

Nike's style of metacommunication is most evident in its ads that project

"irreverence," but it is no less important in ads that convey a sense of the
"inspirational." Copywriters at Wieden & Kennedy, routinely comment that
their overarching aim is to produce commercials that treat the viewer with
"respect" as an "intelligent peer." They resent, along with their audience,
the insulting way most ads speak at viewers. Nike's style of metacommuni­
cation was revealed to us when we interviewed a Wieden & Kennedy copy­
Separated from the context of the writer about an ad called "A Time of Hope" (see Chapter 3). When asked
commercial this scratched frame is
why Wieden & Kennedy had used heavily scratched high-contrast film sand­
meaningless.
wiched between the primary images, he replied that it was no big deal. He
merely wanted to avoid having the ad "feel like a generic Pepsi commercial
with a seamless sensibility." The scratches signified to him, and to viewers,
a "rawer, edgier" tone and a more jarring textual climate. What was to him
an unremarkable moment, was to us a powerful example of metacommu­
nication at work.
The style and personality of metacommunication in 1990 s' advertising
have become a key to building a highly valued brand image. Advertisers
no longer differentiate themselves simply by the objects or services they sell
us, or by the content of their images, but by the style or aesthetic of their
pitch. They differentiate themselves by how they tell a joke, or by the pho­
tographic aesthetic they adopt, or by the tone of voice they employ.
When we encounter an advertisement or a commercial we engage in a
"decoding" activity. This does not mean that we will necessarily decode
what has been encoded, but rather that we recognize that the ad we have
encountered requires our interpretation. So, how do we recognize an ad
when we see one? How do we distinguish something as a TV commercial
rather than as a news item or a sitcom or a public service announcement?
Most of the time we recognize the "look" of ads almost instantly because of
how they are structured and shot. Our tendency as TV viewers and maga­
zine readers is to look for markers that provide clues to the agenda or "pur­
pose" of the image so that we can get a handle on how to interpret it.
Perhaps, we recognize a particular kind of announcer's tone; perhaps we
recognize a particular kind of camera work; or a style of editing that we
associate with the agenda of advertisements. There are also formal rules of
structuring ads that we referred to above as formulas. Jaded viewers can
usually recognize an ad quickly enough that if they have a remote control
device in their hand, they can move on before being exposed to the irritating
formula. As a result, advertisers in the 1990 s have been compelled to search
for tactics that might re-engage jaded viewers.
Once we recognize and identify that something is an ad, we then go
on to decipher it. Some of this decoding is mechanical, like following the
rules of a formula or a recipe. But a significant part of the decoding process
goes well beyond these rules as we interpret the significance of an image.s
The Wieden & Kennedy writer spoke of how scratches in the video signified

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J u st Metaco m m u n icate It 35

a "rawer, edgier" tone. The language o f signified and signifier i s the lan­
guage of semiotics, which is an analytic approach to the study of how things
mean. The signified is the meaning we draw from a scene, while the signifier
is the thing that "gives off" the meaning. In this case, the scratches made
up a signifier, while the signified was a sense or feeling of "edginess" about
the whole of the ad.
John Berger captured advertising's underlying commodity narrative as
follows: "The spectator-buyer is meant . . . to imagine herself transformed by
the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify
her loving herself. "9 Consumer-goods ads typically tell stories of success,
desire, happiness, and social fulfillment in the lives of people who con­
sume the right brands. Interpreting the stories told by ads is always
conditional on how they address, or hail, us - how we are positioned and
how the commodity is positioned. When ads hail us, they appellate
us, naming us and inviting us to take up a position in relation to the nar­
rative of the ad. In this way, ads greet us as individual viewers with what
seems to be our own " alreadyness" - our own ideological assumptions
and personalities.lO
Over the years, thousands of ads for consumer items have invited us to
identify in this way with the model on screen. They do so by literally nam­
ing and inviting us into the ad with a "hey you" slogan. Sears, for exam­
ple, has been running a TV campaign that sings, "here's looking at you . . . "
This kind of advertising encourages viewers to imaginatively invest in a
process of identifying with the image of the objectified model on screen.
Another frequently used form of address leaves the "you" part of the
address tacit in a command or imperative form, such as "Life is a sport.
Drink it up." These lines, taken from a recent Gatorade campaign, can be
instructively contrasted with Nike advertising. The Gatorade commercial
consists of a collage of fully decontextualized scenes of human movement,
assembled as a rapidly moving, rapidly cutting sequence choreographed
by a vaguely African-inspired musical rhythm, all while the male voice­
over hails viewers with motivational slogans such as "You gotta want it so
bad, you can taste it."
Gatorade attempts to disguise a trite advertising formula with the
rhythm of the African music and the slick editing movement. The ad is built
around a pattern of abstracting snippets of activity from any meaningful
context, for the sole purpose of using these scenes to testify to their stated slo­
gan, "Life's a sport . . . drink it up." TheGatorade slogan draws an equiva­
lence between drinking a container of Gatorade and this glorified imagery
of the fullness of life. To reinforce this equivalence throughout the ad,
Gatorade tinted the scenes orange with greenish objects dotting the fore­
ground. This combination replicates the colors of the Gatorade packaging to
visually reinforce brand identification with the colors of the Gatorade con­
tainer. Piling redundancy on redundancy, in the closing scene, the slogan is

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36 Nike C u lture

written out on-screen, with the orange and white Gatorade lightning-bolt
insignia forming a punctuation mark, just in case we might have missed the
equivalence already drawn.
How do Gatorade ads differ from Nike ads? Well, actually most Nike ads
draw on roughly the same structural pattern. They abstract the meanings
of images, recontextualize them and then draw a relationship of equivalence
between that meaning and the meaning of the swoosh. Yet, the Nike ads are far
less transparent in how they urge us to follow and execute these reading
rules. The difference in transparency between these ads lies at the meta­
communicative level. Nike ads do not use comparable video or photographic
codes, nor do they attempt to over-orchestrate meaning - instead, Nike ads
tend to let viewers be actively involved in making sense of the ad - mak­
ing it appear as if they are the ones doing the meaning construction. Notice
the difference between Gatorade's slogan, phrased in the imperative voice,
"You gotta want it . . . " as opposed to the volitional Nike injunction "Just do
it" because it is a matter of will.
Rather than fully repress its own part in the commodification process,
Nike chooses to draw attention to its own involvement by means of parody
and exaggeration. In contrast to the subdued sincerity of their black and
white ads, Nike frequently uses entertainment-style ads to flex their irrev­
erent attitudes. In these ads, Nike may rely on exaggerated and oversatu­
rated colors, satirical humor, and expressionistic editing to play with the
Saturday Night Live comedienne contradictions of the celebrity athlete - that media hype, sneaker contracts,
Jan Hooks plays the role of thera­
and advertising have invaded their lives. This metacommunicative style not
pist for Nike athletes who can't
only addresses the ambivalence of the celebrity athlete but also sets Nike
handle beingfast. Nike's use of
humor expresses a non-commercial apart on a higher moral plane. Nike pokes fun at the commercialization and
attitude towards its stable of ath­ spectacularization of sport by making fun of its own contributions to the
letes while it takes a satiric jab at society of the spectacle. In a world where the excesses of commodification are
the feel-good therapeutic ethos. visible everywhere, Nike's approach is to acknowledge the almighty dollar
bill and joke about its tyranny.

HAILING SPORTS SUBCULTURES

Nike has become synonymous with sport culture, or more precisely, sports
cultures. Nike organizes its marketing, design and development around sport
categories. In the Nike organizational culture, people pride themselves on
connecting with athletes in terms of the authenticity of specific sports and
their cultures.
Even though a significant portion of Nike's sales go to non-athletes,
Nike sees itself as producing products for athletes, as a company in touch
with the concerns and interests of athletes and the subcultures with which
they identify. Hence, in addition to featuring premiere athletes from spe­
cific sports, Nike ads also capture the nuances and details of the sport that

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J u st Metacom m u n i cate It 37

connote a tone o f insider authenticity. When asked about the non-athlete

portion of their market, Nike employees invariably respond that this is gravy,
but never, ever informs the way Nike addresses its target audiences. Indeed,
watching Nike ads often presumes that viewers have access to a body of
shared cultural capital. By addressing viewers as sports insiders, Nike hails
them as members of a select group. The boundary drawn around the "we­
ness" of the community includes Nike and those who get the joke, or share
the concern, or recognize a player.
Originally,
Nike produced runners' shoes before moving into basket­
ball. Subsequently, as Nike has grown, it has looked to translate general
demographic characteristics into meaningful sports categories. Moving
from women's sports as a general marketing category, Nike now addresses
women basketball players differently than women who run or who play
tennis or golf. In a comparable manner, ACe - Nike's outdoors category -
becomes subdivided into hikers, mountain bikers, and climbers. By direct­
ing advertising at specific sports cultures Nike both embraces niche mar­
keting while also affirming its own ideology, that it is a product-driven
corporation that responds to the specific needs of athletes. Paradoxically,
while Nike defines itself as product-driven, its television advertising is not.
Its commercials rarely demonstrate products or give product information.
Rather, Nike ads concentrate on hailing viewers about the aesthetic and dis­
cursive practices of each sport subculture. Nike focuses on the subcultures of
sport - those already existent communities of meaning that share values,
linguistic codes, rituals, jokes, heroes, concerns, commodity signs, and net­
works. When Nike's marketing and advertising decision-makers do their
job well, Nike appears to "speak the voice" of these subcultures as an insider,
speaking to other insiders who share a set of recognized signs. The humor,
tone of voice, and issues addressed in these ads give Nike an authentic voice.
This permits Nike to insert itself as a legitimate part of that sport subcul­
ture. In this sense we see Nike advertising constructing sports as cultural
practices and then inserting the product, the swoosh and Nike philosophy
into those practices.
The process of hailing a collective sport subculture rather than just an
individual is nowhere made as clear as in the opening lines of a 1997 cam­
paign focused on the authentic core of basketball. The ad opens with an
African American narrator declaring:

Nobody owns us, man.

When I say us, I mean ballplayers.
nobody owns us, you understand?
And nobody can own basketball . . .

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38 Nike C u lture

If the subject already considers him/herself as part of this community, they

are invited to consider this as their discourse. This approach to hailing creates
both a sense of exclusivity (I am one of the elect, a self-identified ballplayer
who having played the game can connect to what is being said) as well as a
sense of populism (the authenticity and interests of the grassroots game
aligned against the fat cats who want to control everything that is good and
decent). Now, it might be argued that this ad is disingenuous insofar as Nike
appears to be taking the side of those who oppose the commodification of
basketball. So be it - that is how the hailing process
is tied into questions of ideology.
In the interest of highlighting how the hailing
Poke check!
process is tailored to fit the sport subculture in ques­
Couldn't stop him.
tion, let us now look briefly at how Nike addresses
the distinct market niches of hockey, soccer, and skate­
boarding.
Nike's hockey campaign consists of comic ads in
which a manic ex-goalie harbors a grudge against
Nike NHL stars for ending his career as a NHL goalie.
Aflop!
Each ad depicts him wearing his full hockey gear as
Couldn't stop him.
he tries to move into civilian life - staffing a psychic
hot line, working at a fast-food counter, and mopping
a floor as a j anitor (a "custodial engineer") all the
while slipping in and out of bitter diatribes as he
relives his inability to stop the shots of Nike stars such
as Sergei Fedorov. In each ad an unsuspecting con­
Butterfly! sumer or passerby becomes the target of his out-of­
Couldn't stop him. control harangues. Each harangue is, however,
punctuated, by a touch of humor aimed at the audi­
ence. Thus, after the goalie's tirade has intimidated
two young boys who are backing away from the fast­
food counter, he calls out after them, "Hey, I was the
employee of the month." This depiction of a crazed
Kick save! goalie who obsessively lives and breathes hockey
Couldn't stop him. derives from one of the nuances of hockey culture,
where goalies are often cast as borderline psychotic
personalities, who have to be a little bit " off" to play a
position that pits the goalie versus the world.
Nike creates a visual joke by plac­
ing a goalie in full gear in the role But shift to soccer and Nike addresses soccer athletes in an entirely
ofa custodian. Here, he relives his different tone of voice. In its soccer adsNike celebrates the dedication of
failure to stop Sergei Fedorov by the unsung underpaid athletes of the sport while needling the American
demonstrating saves to a business­ mass media for not giving soccer the coverage it deserves. In one ad, rain­
man waiting anxiously for an
soaked and covered with mud and sweat, a player named Brian McBride
elevator.
provides the voice-over for soccer highlights strung together using hyper­
real codes.

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J u st Metaco m m u n icate I t 39

Ourfootball has no Primetimes nor Ministers of Defense

Our football never stops, not for injuries, not for commercials.
Our football championship isn't won
by beating another city in our own country.
It is won by beating every nation on earth.

By stressing the plural possessive of "Our football" Nike hails soccer

players as members of a pre-existing soccer community with what seems a
statement of identity. It is not that other game of football with its commercial
breaks, its nicknames, and frequent stoppages of play. Nike frames soccer
players as unconcerned with either money or fame, but who play because of
their dedication to their sport. By constructing soccer as a global non­
commercialized sport discriminated against by the network television exec­
utives of North America, Nike boosts the cultural capital of soccer players.
While the ads hail soccer players as willing to labor in obscurity, the ads
also suggest a touch of irritation and annoyance about the lack of attention
and compensation. This ambivalence has a purpose here. By recognizing
soccer players for their non-commercial love of their sport, Nike also positions
itself as recognizing and acknowledging dedication. By acknowledging the
sense of unjustified exclusion from the media, Nike can be seen siding with
the players against the "big guys." Ironically, if soccer gets increased recog­
nition, commercial time-outs may quickly become parts of the game, so will
big name stars, and increased Nike sales.
To address skateboarders Nike exploits a central issue to skateboard
culture - the prohibition of skateboarding in public places. During the 1997
X-Games Nike aired commercials created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners,
a San Francisco advertising agency, that depicted golfers, runners, and ten­
nis players being hassled for participating in their sports. In one ad a security
guard harasses two adult couples playing doubles tennis. The security guard
is full of his own authority, so that the emphasis is precisely on the abuse
of authority. When one of the players throws his racket, the security guard
yells, "Hold your horses there, McEnroe. Do you see the sign?" "Tennis pro­
hibited" signs are plastered around the court. As one couple bolts and tries
to escape by climbing the chain link fence, the guard reacts, "Hey, hey, hey,
hey! Off the fence. Couple of monkeys up there. Game over. Tonight's done.
Jackasses." On the screen Nike copy speaks for skateboarders as it poses the
question, "What if we treated all athletes the way we treat skateboarders?"
Making inroads into skateboard culture will be a difficult task.
Associated with punk ideology and style, skateboarders have been dis­
trustful, and even downright hostile toward all that smacks of corporate
America. Nike's skateboard ads hail the youth who might be skateboarders
not as an Nike speaks to this group
alternative lifestyle group but as athletes.
by speaking for it. The use of mainstream middle class sports and older ath­
letes integrates class and age into Nike's critique of both hypocrisy and

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40 Nike C u lture

authority. Classifying skateboarding as a sport not only legitimizes skate­

boarding but also positions Nike as a corporation that sides with those who
are treated unfairly. Note finally, not just what is included in the hailing
process, but what has been left out. What is absent in these ads?
Skateboarders. Unlike the ads in a skateboard magazine such as Thrasher,
which address this audience with anti-establishment copy, signs, and images,
the Nike ads have excluded the wider relations of alternative culture and its
references to punk, drug use, zines, etc. These Nike ads hail skateboarders,
and align with their interests, even while expunging the threatening (to the
middle class) ideological components of this subculture.

ADVERTISING AND THE KNOWING WINK

Ads adopt a "tone of voice" and an "attitude" in addressing viewers. Until the
late 1980s, few advertisers drew attention to their form of address. What
changed this? "The nature of a relationship must be metacommunicated, but
in a power relationship an authority may attempt to falsify the metacommu­
nication." In other words, an advertiser usually seeks to position the viewer in
relationship to the brand product. In marketing jargon, positioning the viewer
is as important as positioning the product. However, the exercise of power
in relationships tends to elicit anger over time. Eventually, the viewing subject
who has been positioned, becomes aware of it and becomes resentful.
When audiences grew resistant to being positioned by the command
structure of advertisements, an avant-garde of risk-taking advertisers coun­
tered viewer disenchantment by drawing attention to the usually tacit
assumptions ads position viewers to accept. These advertisers sought to dis­
arm resentment by acknowledging that advertising usually positions view­

One offbeat Miller Lite campaign ers in a manipulative way. By bringing this relationship between advertiser
featured all advertisilW character and viewer to the surface of the ad, and acknowledging the agenda of adver­
named Dick, who sportively tising, these advertisers try to exempt themselves as different from the rest.
exposes the underlying semiotic Levi's brought the "knowing wink" to prime-time television advertising
formula for cOIl/lIlercials. The key
in the mid 1980s when they acknowledged the bogus character of fashion
to the "advertising concept" as
advertising that implied a desirable individuality could be gained through
indicated on the screen is to start
and end with the "Miller Time" the act of consumption. The wink was subsequently imitated by other adver­
and then virtl/ally any l1laterial tisers and modified until it too reached the level of banality. Within a few
that comes to l/lind can be sand­ years, the wink had become overtly self-conscious. The Joe Isuzu campaign
wic/led ill between. is probably the most famous attempt to self-consciously foreground the issue
of falsified messages in advertising while j oking about this process. This
foregrounding makes it a metalanguage that speaks to a higher level of spec­
tator sophistication about advertising codes. It does seem ironic, however,
that as spectators come to distrust the manufactured simulacrum of televi­
sion advertising, advertisers try to appease this by offering ads that reflect
harshly on the subject of advertising itself.

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J u st Metacom m u n i cate I t 41

Around 1988 the reliance on self-reflexivity in ads escalated. During

the early 1990s a new type of commercial emerged, layered in levels. No
ads are better recognized for this amalgam than those done for Nike by
Wieden & Kennedy, who unveiled another classic of metacommunication,
intertextuality, and self-reflexive awareness during the 1993 Baseball All­
Star game. Called "Boys in the barbershop," this ad built on references to
Nike's prior "Bo knows" series of ads. Set in a small town barbershop to
connote a reminder of a social space where men talk sports and politics,
the ad opens with the men staring at a mockup Bo commercial on the bar­
bershop TV. This is the commercial within the commercial. The music that
accompanies Bo's workout has the same repetitive beat as the "Bo knows
it's got that Air Thing" music from one ofNike's previous ads about Bo in
Las Vegas. An old-timer mutters, "This Nike commercial is boring." On the
screen, Bo can be seen doing squat thrusts as a second man remarks in
deadpan tone, "It's just Bo in a gym. " A third man declares that "I can do
that." Bo's doing nothing we can't do. In tum, they continue to critique the
Nike ad.

Man #4: Where are the dancing girls ?

Man #3: Where's the singing?
Man # 1 : I miss the montage style of editing.
Man #2: It's just Bo in a gym.

The men's voices wander from deadpan to flattened numbness and disbelief.
Their comments again refer viewers back to Bo's Chorus Line commercial
with dancing girls and a Vegas showtune. They lament the absence of these
elements in the current campaign. The comment, "I miss the montage style
of editing," contrasts Bo's exercise and work ethic with the glitz and tricks of
the television spectacle. Comparing the space of the barbershop with the
space of the ad makes for a wryly delivered joke, as the men state their pref­
erence for the "entertainment" ads that enliven their otherwise dull and
uneventful lives. The device of an ad within the ad offers us a glimpse at
what is supposed to be the underlying Nike philosophy, while the jokey part
of the ad itself offers meta-commentary about the difference between true
sport and the spectacle.
By calling attention to its own spectacle Nike calls into question the
authenticity of that spectacle and advertising's manipulation of excitement.
The ad draws to a close as the old-timer comments that "only a Nike com­
mercial in a barbershop would be more boring. " The barber replies, "Even
Nike's not that dumb." At this, the camera scans back to the television screen
and there is a pause in the music. Bo looks up from his workout as if he has
been listening to their conversation. His look, an ironic glance shared directly
with us, the viewing audience, suggests that "well, I dunno - Nike could
indeed be that dumb." Bo knows. Wink, wink. It is this look which summa-

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42 Nike C u lture

rizes what we mean by the "knowing wink." Nike isn't just a shoe anymore,
or even a collection of superstar athletes, it's an attitude - it's an ironic aware­
ness that Roland Barthes called "the second degree. " l 1
Nike has cultivated this ironic and reflexive awareness about the role
of ads in such a way that Nike's profile of self-awareness has become part
of Nike's identity. Nike advertising has, since the Spike Lee and Michael
Jordan ads, been able to distance Nike from their own commodity rhetoric ­
e.g., "it's gotta be the shoes." They consistently joke about their slogans, as if
to say - "our primary message to you is still that the capacity to change and
develop as a person must come from you. Hey we just sell good shoes with
an attitude."
The ironic winking encourages reflexivity and constructs Nike as self­
effacing company with a sense of humor. They don't take themselves too
seriously. The "Bo knows" Las Vegas commercial embraced the contradiction
that always lurks underneath the construction of celebrity athletes who are
supposed to be authentic. In what appears to be a big-budget musical extrav­
aganza with orchestra and costumed dancing girls, Bo plays the role of
superstar singer / performer. The chorus, "Bo knows it's got the Air Thing"
refers to the "Bo knows" series of ads and presents itself as a form of Nike
self-mockery. After a few seconds of the singing, Bo yells "Stop," before
blurting out, "this is ridiculous. I'm an athlete, not an actor. Let me out of
this thing. I have rehab to do." Suddenly he climbs through the TV screen
into a middle class family den. As he passes through, he matter-of-factly
admonishes the boy not to watch too much TV, while the boy can be heard
saying, "great shoes." A montage shows Bo weightlifting, swimming and
bicycling. In the middle of this, the big musical production number can once
again be heard faintly in the background. Bo stops his workout to object,
"Hey, where's that music coming from?" The ensuing scene shows Bo scold­
ing a large screen bearing the Nike logo: "You know I don't have time for
this." But the final shot completes the joke, as the scene cuts to George
Foreman loudly declaring, "But I do! Hit it! " And the chorus resumes their
song and dance with Big George who happily participates in the spectacle
and hype. Bo's role in the narrative is to critique the logic of the spectacle,
insofar as it moves him away from his real identity as athlete to an inau­
thentic self (the entertainer). Nike has executed an ad "analyzing the essence
of hype and the inevitable cycle of mega-celebrity: mass adulation, giant
commercial deals, overexposure, death and revival as self-parody."12 Having
Bo speak directly at the swoosh sign shows that Nike can laugh at itself and
participate in its own self-critique.
Nike ads almost always end with the swoosh overlaying or replacing
the final scene. This is obviously Nike's way of signing its ads. Since Nike so
often runs ads without any obvious indication of selling shoes, it is important
to identify which corporation brought you the image or the narrative or the
joke you've just watched. Without such an identifying mark, we might won-

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J u st Meta co m m u n icate I t 43

der what the agenda o f this piece was. In the case o f Nike, where the name
has disappeared, replaced by the logo, the swoosh sign not only signifies
Nike, it also supplies a missing piece of the narrative, another clue about
how to interpret what has already been seen. For these reasons, we consider
the swoosh at the end a punctuation mark. It locates, orders, and closes the
narrative, signs the ad, and hails the viewer goodbye with a wink and a
nod.

EXPOSING COMMERCIALISM?

The Nike print and Internet campaign prior to the 1996 Atlanta Summer
Olympics addressed viewers in exaggerated terms about what advertising,
marketing, and promotion do to sport and sport culture. Nike's multi-page,
fold-out ad appeared in Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated. The same mate­
rial was delivered differently, with crude movement and sound, at Nike's
Olympic Internet site. The tone of the ad was both hyper-irreverent and
sarcastic. The slogan, or should we say, the anti-slogan, of the Nike cam­
paign was: "We don't sell dreams. WE SELL SHOES." The ad opens with
Max, a "clever corporate icon created to help explain the new technology of
Air Max cushioning from Nike," self-consciously spouting off about his
function.

TWHAT IT IS:

A I R 1M IX � H AT
THIS IS NOT I

.-.---.--,,�-.

r D O ES:

•.
�..�if ..
.. ..... ""'-'
....... . ...
.
"� ��
...�
.
.
mo "'..n..
........ ....",
, .. ..',.....
... ... pH DON" SElL OR[U$.I
,WE SELL SHOES.'

In an effort to foster a somewhat tenuous feeling of good will between

you, the target market, and my employer, the Nike corporation, I have
been rendered as an innocuous anthropomorphic icon with protruding
eyes and sneakers.

In the Internet version, the obnoxious talking icon (a parody of the Atlanta
Olympic Games mascot, the Whatzit) is suddenly interrupted when a large
foot squashes it, a la the cult classic movie short, "Bambi meets Godzilla."
This is followed by:

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44 Nike C u lture

Don't insult our

Intelligence.
Tell us what it is.
Tell us what it does.
And don't play
The National Anthem
While you do it.

Throughout the multi "page" ad, Nike snidely attacks rival marketers: "If
you put an officially licensed logo on a box of cupcakes in anticipation of
world class competition you are a marketer. " The execution of the ad is
intentionally crude and un-slick - simulating the look of an alternative zine.
Here Nike stakes out the antithesis of NBC's approach to Olympic broadcast
coverage. NBC turned every event into sappy emotional stories about over­
coming personal adversity. The editing room became far more central to the
story they told than the actual Olympic events themselves. Schmaltzy mood
music and a gauzy feel to the video framed every story. By contrast, Nike's
"Search and Destroy" campaign had a visceral feel, driven by both the
"roughness" of the music and the imagery. While the print and the Internet
campaigns focused on blatant self-conscious statements about the cultural
conditions of interpreting ads, the TV campaign drove the point home minus
the self-reflexivity.
Nike advertising has relied heavily on the metacommunicative dimen­
sion to address some of the fundamental cultural tensions and contradic­
tions that come with the territory of being the biggest shoe company: How
can they reconcile in the public mind the issue of corporate size vs. empow­
erment? The advertisers at Wieden & Kennedy sensed that they must buffer
Nike from the logic of the spectacle, the logic of commercialism, and the logic
of advertising, even though they are enmeshed up to their ears in these log­
ics. Though this flavor of Nike ads engages us by being self-reflexive about
underlying agendas, they do not actually promote much serious reflection on
these subjects - instead, these narratives of irreverence aim solely at rein­
forcing the value of the punctuation mark: the swoosh.
In summary, Nike ads draw attention to metacommunication in order to
distance Nike from the processes of commercializing sport and thereby legit­
imize its own contradictory commercial practices which contribute to the
corruption of sport. Further, this approach self-consciously differentiates
Nike from competing advertisers by conveying the impression that Nike
occupies the higher moral ground in sports (for example, the distinction
drawn between others who are characterized as "marketers" and Nike who
is defined as an "innovator" of athletic technology). Third, this approach
creates space for constructing sport as a personally empowering activity,
something that is essential to future Nike markets and earnings. Finally,
drawing attention to the underpinnings of metacommunication allows Nike

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J u st Metacom m u n icate I t 45

t o continue representing itself a s a self-reflexive corporation with a thought­

ful philosophy. Though Nike has become the Goliath of the industry, it still
wants to appear like David.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. The concept of a political economy of sign volue has gained weight in recent years
thanks largely to the reception of Jean Baudrillard's writings. For more on the political
economy of sign value in relation to advertising see Judith Williamson's Oecoding
Advertisements (Marion Boyars, London, 1978); Jean Baudrillard's For 11 Critique of the
Politiclll EconolllY of tile S ign (Telos Press, St. Louis, 1981 ); Robert Goldman's Rcndil1g
Ads Socilllly (Routledge, New York, 1992); and Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson's
Sign Wil l'S (Guilford, New York, 1 996).
2. Cited in Gene Yasuda "Making Pelmy a Show-Biz Star," Tile Orlllndo Sentinel, October
29 1 995, p. A 1 .
3 . "Suddenly, he's everywhere - Spike the director, Spike the Nike endorser, Spike the
guest editor. But the real-life al ter ego of Mars Blackmon is more than the conscience
of a racially divided society. His emergence as a product pitchman tells us something
about marketing" ("Spike, The Phenomenon," Adwcek's Mllrketing Week, July 16 1 990,
p. 4) .
4. Nelson George, liner notes: Tile Best of Gil Scott-Heron (Arista, New York, ] 984).
5. See Jean Baudrillard, Sillllllllcm Ilnd Sillllliation, translated by Sheila Faria Glaser
(University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, ] 994); Wi lliam Bogard, The Silllulation of
S urveillal1ce (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1 996); Douglas Kellner, Jean
Balldrillllrd: Frolll Marxisl1l to P05tllwdel'lliSin al1d Beyond (Stanford U n iversity Press,
Stanford, CA, 1989).
6. See Jolm Fiske's Power Plm/s, Power Works (Verso, London, 1993) for how the end zone
dance of African American ball players represents the struggle between discipline
and expressivity.
7. Gregory Bateson, Steps to 1111 E o ogy of tile Milld
c l (Ballantine, New York, 1 972).
8. I nterpretation is an open process that can produce multiple meanings. Ads may be
read against the grain of the text, or readings may vary by the level of intertextual
knowledge and savvy brought to the reading. Nike constructs ads that can be enjoyed
without much background knowledge of specific advertising texts. But they can be
appreciated much more if the viewer does recognize textual allusions and references
to other mass media pieces both within and outside the sphere of Nike discourse.
9. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Penguin, New York, 1 972), p. 1 34.
10. Williamson, Oecoding Advertiselllents, p. 5 1 .
1 1 . Roland Barthes, Roland Bartiles, translated b y Richard Howard. (Hill and Wang, New
York, ]977).
12. Barbara Lippert, " Nike learns to use overexposed celebs," Adweek's Marketing Week,
July 1 5 1 99 1 , p. 29.

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3.
HIKE AND THE
CONSTRUCTION OF A
CELEBRITY DEMOCRACY

A tension between the desire for individual glory and the desire to be a part
of an egalitarian and democratic community runs throughout American
sports culture. In this chapter we examine apparently opposing poles of Nike
commercials. While the Michael Jordan, Penny Hardaway, Deion Sanders,
and Ken Griffey, Jr. ads encourage viewers to identify with heroes and ath­
letic superstars, Nike ads such as "Revolution," "Instant Karma," and " A
Time of Hope" conjure up a community of equals who play for the love of
the game rather than for record performances or celebrity status.
Sports talk embraces both the language of individualism and the lan­
guage of community. While celebrating the heroic individual who performs
great feats, it also rhetorically endorses commitment to others through team­
work. Still, the elevation of individual athletes into big-name celebrities
dominates sports discourse. The language of individuality finds its pinnacle
in the language of heroes. Nike built its brand identity upon such hero wor­
ship. The power, indeed the value, of Nike's swoosh depends upon the athletes
Nike signs to contracts. Nike transforms athletes into cultural heroes. After
losing ground to the Nike strategy of turning star athletes into sign value,
Reebok has countered with its own superstar signees - Shaquille O'Neal,
Frank Thomas, and Allen Iverson. Adidas has made its move by signing
future stars: Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady.
In a society so addicted to individualism, athletic heroism serves the
market economy well. Developing heroes into sign values is, however, a
risky business. Visual representations of athletes are driven by the logic of the
media and its markets. Nurtured to increase sales, these representations
exaggerate by being one-sided. However, heroes are also real people who
don't always meet audience expectations. The expectations of image collide
with news of how heroes sometimes actually act. Celebrity athletes spit in the
face of umpires (Roberto Alomar), get injured (Bo Jackson), become impli­
cated in scandals (Michael Irvin), dog it (Derrick Coleman), perform ordi­
narily (Harold Miner) or gamble (Michael Jordan). And, when images of

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Nike a n d the Con structi o n of a C e l e b r i ty Democracy 47

Pakistani children making Nike soccer balls flooded the news, Nike itself
became vulnerable to the disparity between its self-representations and the
photorealist record of its production practices.
Heroes are supposed to act from idealistic motives; the celebrity, how­
ever, is a paid endorser. Heroes do it for the love of the game and for the
community they hold dear. But, in the sports era of free agents, with teams
jumping to more lucrative markets, labor strikes, hold outs and arbitrations,
it is difficult to convince increasingly suspicious audiences that a profes­
sional athlete is pure of heart. While the hero transcends human limitations,
the hero must also act in behalf of the greater good. Where people experience
commercialism as a calculated assault, Nike must construct representations
which counter this trend, and this is no easy task when the promotion of
heroes edges advertisers toward promoting self-aggrandizing individual­
ism. When self-centered motives are ascribed to an athletic hero, the
celebrity's sign value may be weakened. While keeping alive the glory and
reward for individual achievement, Nike has also tried to construct a lan­
guage which articulates our desires for fraternity and sociability.

THE AMBIVALENCE OF HERO WORSHIP

Any discussion of hero worship and Nike must begin with Michael Jordan. In
1984 Nike signed Jordan to a $2.5 million contract over five years. Nike took
a risk investing in this young athlete at a time when Nike's economic per­
formance was under pressure. Nike's earnings had declined 65% and in
December of 1984 Nike laid off 400 employees. For a small company in eco­
nomic difficulties, signing Jordan to a contract this size was a gamble. What
if Jordan got injured? What if Jordan didn't perform as expected? Nike man­
agement, however, was so confident in Jordan's abilities that they went In this comic commercial CEO
beyond the traditional endorsement strategy and created a line of shoes Jordan inspects and boxes each
shoe. In the marketplace, Nike's
named Air Jordan. To increase Jordan's incentive in promoting Nike, the firm
strategy has been to produce fewer
paid him a royalty on shoes and apparel that carried his name. In April 1985
Air Jordan shoes than it can sell.
Nike aired its now-famous "Jordan Flight" commercial. To the sound of
revving jet engines Jordan moves towards the basket. As the engines reach
the roar of take-off velocity, Jordan explodes into the air. Legs apart, Jordan
seems suspended almost indefinitely. "Who said a man was not meant to
fly?" This commercial not only propelled Jordan into the air but also restored
Nike as a growth corporation. When Air Jordans hit the stores in April of
1985, Nike could not keep up with demand. The Air Jordan line sold over
$100 million in its first year. Jordan's sign value continued to rise and with
him Nike. Jordan would later comment that, "What Phil and Nike have done
is turn me into a dream."! The theme of human transcendence conveyed by
the image of Jordan in flight became fused with the Nike swoosh reinforced by
its "Just do it" tagline.

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48 Nike C u lture

Advertising, in general, amplifies a culturally ambivalent relationship

between identity and hero worship. Athletic heroes represent prevailing
societal values, particularly those linked to the triumph of individualism.
Sports discourse has become so heavily loaded as the discourse of moral­
ity that the athlete superhero has been turned into a hyperinflated signifier of
the benefits of hard work and the achievement ethic. Because many athletes
emerge out of lower classes, the superhero image lends credibility to a func­
tioning American Dream. Consequently, in contemporary American society
the star athlete's representation emerged as an over-idealized role model for
childhood and adolescent cultures. Think of Gatorade's campaign tagline, "I
want to be like Mike," where the desire to identify with the superstar turns
into a conformist urge. There is, indeed, a psychological risk in over identi­
fication with the celebrity athlete. Recall the feminist critique of women's
advertising and how the tantalizing, yet unattainable beauty ideals held out
to women spur on feelings of inadequacy, obsessions of regulating body
weight and the diseases of anorexia and bulimia associated with the gap
between the glamour of the model and the everyday. The celebrity athlete
always speaks to what one wants to be, as well as what one is not. In The
Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch suggested that constant media expo­
sure to celebrity culture cultivates a dark underside of individualism: anxi­
eties about inferiority fuel compensatory grandiose fantasies of unlimited
fame and success.2 Films such as The King of Comedy and The Fan explore
how self-identity can become warped when the fan over-identifies with rep­
resentations of celebrity.
One way to defuse the underlying mix of anxiety and anger associated
with the relationship between the fan and the star athlete is the use of self­
reflexive and self-deprecatory humor in ads. While the "Flight" commer­
cial established Jordan as the premier sports celebrity of the NBA, it was the
ensuing campaign that gave both Jordan and Nike personalities. Its new
advertising agency, Wieden & Kennedy, developed a self-referential intertex­
tual style for Nike. In terms of a personality quotient, Nike sold authenticity
by developing a playful relationship between its athletes, the media, the
audience, and itself. In the "Mars" campaign Spike Lee played the character
Mars Blackmon from his film She's Gatta Have It.

In one early ad, Mars asks, and answers, a now famous line in adver­
tising history. With Mars' face almost pressed to the camera, Michael Jordan

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Nike a n d the Con struction of a Celebrity Democra cy 49

stands in the background, arm around Nola Darling, while Mars peppers
them with questions about why she likes him "Is it the shoes?" "No Mars,"
.

replies Jordan. "Is it that he's 6' 6" and the best dunker in the universe?"
"No Mars," repeats Nola. Finally, Mars declares, his face thrust into the cam­
era, "It's gotta be the shoes! Please baby, please baby, please Mr Nike, you
gotta hook me up [with some of these shoes]." In this series of ads, Mars
playfully addresses assumptions about the relationship between advertis­
ing, commodities, and people.

Most advertising, of course, presumes that one can obtain an identity

with the commodity advertised. In athletic shoe advertising, countless ads
associate their brand with images of speed, success, and the admiration of
beautiful women. Nike commercials playfully raise the usually unspoken
assumptions concerning the relationship between commodities and iden­
tity so that Nike can distance itself from such philistine attitudes. In this way,
Nike disavows the spectacular function of the shoe. It both joins and sepa­
rates the superstar 's performance from its product. Nike openly acknowl­
edges its product will not endow us with the power to magically perform
like Jordan, even while teasing that "it's gotta be the shoes." Particularly
with young, media literate consumers, Nike's authenticity quotient went up.
As Jordan's career and legend progressed, Nike continued to associate
Jordan with themes of transcendent skill and iron determination while keep­
ing him human. Nike balanced Jordan's celebrity with humanity by casting
Jordan in moments of self-reflexivity that alternate between serious and
humorous. During the 1997 NBA play-offs Nike aired two ads featuring the
inner voice of Michael Jordan musing about what it takes for him to excel as
an athlete. Shot in slow motion, one ad takes us backstage to follow Jordan's
pre-game route from his car into the arena, making his way past admiring
fans and employees via the players' entrance. Looking like a GQ model,
Jordan is dressed for success while his inner voice reflects on his willing­
ness to risk failure as a necessary prerequisite to his success.

I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.

I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.
Jordan glides through this com­
I'vejailed over and over and over again in my life. mercial with kingly grace. Here,
And that is why I succeed. regal wisdom replaces athleticism

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50 Nike C u lture

In a second ad, a sweat-drenched Jordan sits on a weight bench reflect­

ing on the sports talk that surrounds him. TIUs time Jordan speaks directly to
the audience about how criticism motivates him to accomplish still more.
The combination of slow motion and rich black and red color tones rein­
forces the reflexive moment. In the Nike philosophy talk is just talk - you've
got to be able to back it up.

Challenge me
doubt me
disrespect me
tell me I'm older
tell me I'm slower
tell me I can no longerfly
I want you to

Jordan embraces "doubt" and "disrespect" as new sources of challenge to

motivate himself. Jordan is more than the premier athlete of the decade, he
is also the premier global celebrity. "Jordan long ago ceased to be a mere
athlete. He transcended his sport and became a global figure, an avatar of
cool integrity, and exemplar of masculine confidence and grace" largely
because Nike constructed him that way.3 The ads express Jordan's success
as an attitude composed of intensity of purpose and desire, focus, and con­
fidence. Moreover, these Nike ads highlight Jordan's inner voice. His intro­
spective reflexivity separates him from other athletes, framing him as a
sophisticated muse - a man who knows himself and appears at one with
himself, a man who demonstrates that the exercise of will enables tran­
scendence of circumstance.
In contrast to these motivational discourses, Nike also presents Jordan
in ads colored by self-reflexive humor in which the star of the commercial
is not Jordan's ability but his confident demeanor and self-effacing per­
sonality. When Jordan returned to the NBA after his self-imposed retire­
ment from basketball to try his hand at professional baseball, Wieden &
Kennedy composed a spot in which Jordan is shooting foul shots in a gym.
In a closeup shot Jordan glances at the camera. "1 had this dream. I retired."
Spliced in is a cut from his retirement speech, "It's time for me to move
away from the game of basketball. " In 1940s film montage style, the front
page of a newspaper spins into focus with a headline that reads, MICHAEL
CALLS IT QUITS. Jordan's voice-over narrates a montage of scenes - a
press conference, playing baseball, eating at a diner, riding a bus - " 1
became a weak-hitting AA outfielder with a below-average arm. I had a
$16 meal per diem. I rode from small town to small town on a bus." The
After riding the bus to nowhere,
spinning newspaper returns with the headline I'M BACK followed by
Jordan bought a bus for his minor shots of Jordan playing basketball. "And then I returned to the game I
league team. loved. I shot 7 for 28 ." The dream-like sequence ends and Jordan is alone

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Nike a n d the C o n structi on of a Celebrity Democracy 51

again shooting foul shots. As Jordan shakes his head in disbelief, he asks
"Can you imagine it? Nah!" Jordan is willing to make fun of himself, his
foibles, and his failure as a baseball player. His status as a superhero is
enhanced by such self-reflexive humor that speaks more to Jordan's per­
sonality than his ability. Nike's willingness to joke at Jordan's expense posi­
tions it as a corporation that enjoys its relationship with its athletes and
its fans.

{Re)creating the modest celebrity: Jordan 's "Air" apparent

There has been speculation that basketball's rapid growth as a world sport
might someday elevate it above soccer in popularity. The spectacle of the
Dream Team at the Barcelona Olympics was constructed by the NBA's mar­
keting machine as it reached out to become a global network. The growing
power of basketball as a global sport necessitates that Nike maintain a clear
cultural dominance in that sport. As the retirement of Jordan looms on the
horizon, and Adidas and Fila aggressively sign young stars, Nike must
develop a new marquee celebrity athlete. Nike's rising new star, Anfernee
"Penny" Hardaway appears to be Jordan's heir apparent. In October 1995
Nike brought out its "Air Penny" basketball shoe.
Nike introduced Hardaway in a "biographical" commercial. In a soft
spoken voice, Hardaway expresses his appreciation of his mother and grand­
mother, the Boys and Girls Club, and the opportunity to play at Memphis
State University. He talks about practice and hard work. This homegrown
hero rooted in his family also reflects a sense of Southern civility. Nike pre­
sented Hardaway as a hard-working athlete, respected for his ability, but
most importantly, humble before the world. In a second commercial
Hardaway meets the press. He sits under a bright light as if being interro­
gated by the police. Five microphones jut into the frame and the press fires
questions at him so fast he has no time to answer. As the questioning con­
tinues, the questions become increasingly absurd.

"Penny, this is your first time to an NBA final. Are you scared? "
"Penny, if Houston double teamed you would you still be able to play?"
"Houston is known for their quickness, so is your team, Orlando. Will that elimi-
nate speed as a factor in this series? "
"Penny, when you played against Tim Hardaway did it get confusing?"
"Houston is a different team than Orlando. Is that a fair question? "
"You scored a different number of points in every playoffgame so far. What's the
strategy? "
"If you win who deserves the credit? "
"What do you think about a t the free throw line?"
"What do you think about right now ? " The media interrogates Anfernee
"Hey Penny, a n NBA championship ring, would you wear it? " Hardaway, a.k.a. Penny.

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52 Nike C u l tu re

"Penny, you wear a size 14 shoe. Does that decrease your chances for a traveling
call? "

Frustrated, Hardaway sits stoic in his silence, impassively staring in disbelief.

With the hint of a sigh the "Just do it" line appears on the screen. This Nike
spokesperson is mute; he's a player not a spokesperson. This is another of
Nike's metacommunicative moments where Nike constructs itself as a sign
of performance. Nike hails us by not actively hailing us. This Nike athlete
doesn't talk about his performance; he just does it.
How does an advertiser make a quiet non-verbal spokesperson an
effective celebrity icon? How does it allow Penny to speak without turn­
ing him into a marketer? How does it keep Hardaway pure in a commer­
cial? The ad's creator, Stacy Wall points out that "by creating a foil for
Hardaway, we allow him to be the true athlete that he is at the same time
we've created someone who can say: 'Pay attention to Penny. He's real
good."'4 Enter Little Penny - an alter-ego big-mouth, a sidekick, a look­
Here, Little Penny and Hardaway alike mannequin resurrected from a proposed commercial that Wieden &
watch the exaggerated spectacle of Kennedy had opted not to use. Little Penny is Nike's voice (as performed by
advertising. This commercial uses
Chris Rock) of pure irreverence. In one ad, Hardaway and Little Penny are
the same falsified metacommunica­
tive structure Nike used in the 80 watching TV, and a Nike commercial comes on with Hardaway dressed in a
Jackson campaign. glittering gold suit, dancing and selling Nike shoes. Hardaway appears flab­
bergasted as Little Penny wisecracks, "Well, I guess Spike Lee wasn't avail­
able." The "Hardaway" within the frame of the mockup television ad, is
the inauthentic, commercialized, that's-entertainment Hardaway - what
sports marketing does to athletes. The embarrassed "Hardaway" outside
the frame is the authentic Hardaway. Nevertheless, they are both con­
structions. The authentic Hardaway is no less a cultural fabrication than
the inauthentic, wooden one. Nike's playfulness in presenting Hardaway
as a showbusiness cartoon, but with a self-reflexive wink, is Nike's sign of
itself.
Another commercial opens with Little Penny, dressed in a miniature
Orlando Magic uniform and wearing headphones, sitting on a locker room
bench. As the taciturn Hardaway ties his shoes, the mannequin engages him
in pre-game locker room chat.

Little Penny: Hey, Penny whadda ya' call those shoes anyway?
Hardaway: Air Penny.
Little Penny: So who do you guys play tonight anyway?
Hardaway: Minnesota.
Little Penny: Los Lobos! I guess you 're goin'for the big numbers tonight. I want
you to go inside then outside. I'm sensing a triple double. I want ya' to say
hello to my man Kevin Garnett. We went to high school together. Just tell
Little Penny trashes the Timber­ him Little Penny from the science class says hello. Can you do that for a
wolves in Orlando's locker room. brother?

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Nike a n d the Con structi o n of a Celebrity Democrac y 53

Little Penny shows no respect for the opponent and talks trash - "Los
Lobos," "big numbers tonight." His stream of inflated hype continues as he
claims to be a high school chum of Kevin Garnett. And he talks black: "my
man Kevin Garnett" and "can you do that for a brother?" Yet this dynamic,
clever, quick-thinking verbal style is a non-threatening discourse because it
is delivered by a mannequin. Hardaway's reactions express discomfort with
the conversation. Looks of "why me?" and "How do I get out of this con­
versation?" cross Hardaway's face. In this campaign the condescending arro­
gant trash-talking mannequin serves as the perfect counterpart for
constructing Hardaway as a soft spoken, respectful, unassuming athlete.
In the "Party" ad the relationship between Hardaway and Little
Penny mimics a parent/adolescent relationship. Hardaway is on the road
calling from his hotel to make sure everything is OK at horne. Little Penny
answers the phone, dressed in a bright red satin Hugh Hefner-type
bathrobe, "The Hardaway residence. " Behind Little Penny is a wild party
with music blaring and people dancing. Hearing the background noise,
Penny asks suspiciously, "Are you having a party?" "Party," replies Little
Penny, "I'm just sitting here reading a book." Little Penny immediately In his Hugh Hefner bathrobe,
shifts the conversation, "Caught the game last night. Let me just put it this Little Penny cajoles Hardaway.
way. You're the best player in the NBA. I mean those spin moves and the
dunks. Oh! Too vicious! I had to go outside to do some tai-chi to calm
myself down." As the conversation continues the party appears increas­
ingly out of control. Hardaway recognizes Little Penny's attempt to redirect
the conversation into hyperbole. "Man, you are having a party. I swear if
you and your sloppy friends are messing up my house . . . " Meantime, a
woman kisses Little Penny on the cheek. "Oh thanks baby! I'll meet you out
by the pool. Hey! hey! I can't talk now. " Uttering something unintelligi­
ble as if static on the phone line was garbling their conversation, he hangs
up.
Each ad is similar in structure. Little Penny tries to manipulate situa­
tions for his own personal satisfaction, cajoling Hardaway with adulation
and flattery. As a character, Little Penny functions to raise Hardaway's sign
value by singing his praises, supported by highlight footage of Hardaway
driving to the basket and dunking cut into the ad.
Always looking for the angle, Little Penny is a transparent hustler look­
ing to score with Tyra Banks or do a film deal with Spike Lee. Hardaway
distances himself from this style with looks of embarrassment. Little Penny
is invariably a source of grief for Hardaway. Each ad ends with Little Penny
continuing his self-promotional chatter.

You know what your problem is.

You 're too modest.
Hey, I give good quotes.
And you can print this on the front page.

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54 Nike C u lture

Anfernee Hardaway, best player in basketball, guarantees championship.

Guarantees.

While Hardaway is the modest

celebrity who just plays ball, Little
Why Hardaway? Why not Gary Payton or Alonzo Mourning? While
Penny is the classic hustler who is
Hardaway is one of the premier players of his generation, we might look
always lookingfor an angle to
attain money,jame, and women beyond basketball ability to personality, style, charisma, and how these ele­
(Tyra Banks). Nike pokes fun at ments can be used to construct a public presence. Stacy Wall of Wieden &
media fantasies as it simultane­ Kennedy describes Hardaway: "On the court, he's an aggressive, phenomenal
ously creates them. player, but off the court he's so soft spoken. It's just not in him to trumpet to
the world that he's the best player on the planet." Erin Patton, Nike's public
relations manager for men's basketball, observed that "If sports has a tar­
nished image, Penny's a shining example of what an athlete should be."s
Nike recognizes that in a sports world tarnished by constant excesses of com­
mercialization, its marquee athlete must appear to be pure. While Charles
Barkley can harp on not being a role model and Deion Sanders can be con­
structed as the incarnation of the spectacle itself, Jordan's heir must appeal to
mainstream middle class audiences by signifying the moral and the moti­
vational functions of sport. No trash-talking players are acceptable for this
role.
Nike's construction of Hardaway as their lead celebrity is designed to
appeal to a general audience. In the world of trash-talking braggadocio,
Hardaway just plays the game. He's a player not a talker. Hardaway doesn't
display black cultural codes or use black language structures. This is not to
say that Nike doesn't niche market along racial demographics, but that its
flagship celebrities have to appeal across racial and ethnic boundaries.
Remember that most people don't buy Nike shoes for use in the sport for
which they were designed. The white middle class has the disposable income
to buy shoes as well as other apparel products from Nike. While Nike gar­
ners media attention when it occasionally transgresses bourgeois moral
boundaries, its center remains organized around conservative bourgeois
moral codes. The trick is to find black athletes who have mass appeal to both
black and non-black audiences. Using Little Penny as a device to structure the
ad allows black cultural codes to enter the frame without overwhelming it.
The Little Penny campaign is often compared to the Mars Blackmon
campaign because each represented blackness outside the persona of the
star athlete. When the subject is Jordan or Hardaway, Nike avoids treating
blackness strictly as race, but rather as a matter of ethnic humor. Consistent

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a Celebrity Democracy 55

with this pattern, when Nike did run a series of ads that dealt directly with
the issue of racism, they engaged Spike Lee (already associated with Do the
Right Thing) rather than Michael Jordan to address the divisiveness of racist
language. The presentation of Hardaway in relationship to Little Penny mir­
rors the construction of Jordan in relationship to Mars Blackmon.
Hardaway's representation, like that of Jordan, allows Nike to hail not
just a broad American audience but a multi-racial global audience. There
are those who see this construction of blackness as problematic.

Jordan is not an example of racial transcendence, rather he is an agent of

racial displacement. Jordan's valorized, racially neutered, image displaces
racial codes onto other black bodies: be they Mars Blackmon, Charles
Barkley, or the anonymous urban black male who the popular media
seems intent on criminalizing. Nikc's promotional strategy systematically
down played Jordan's blackness by contrasting him with Spike Lee's
somewhat troubling caricature of young, urban, African American males,
Mars Blackmon . . . The contrast fortified Jordan's wholesome , responsible,
all American , and hence non-threatening persona, and became the basis of
his hyperreal identity which was subsequently embellished by the multi­
plying circuits of promotional capital which enveloped him."

There are a series of related assumptions underlying this critique of

race representations that demand closer examination. Viewing Jordan's per­
sona as a completely market-driven identity in which Jordan's blackness
disappears from view in relation to Mars Blackmon assumes that Jordan's
own subjectivity and biography have been emptied out in the marketing
process. What has been distilled out, this argument suggests, is "threat."
This rests, in turn, on a dubious equation of "racially neutered" with "non­
threatening persona." What does a "threatening persona" have to do with
blackness? If Jordan does not come across as representing sufficient black­
ness, perhaps that is because "blackness" is constructed on television in the
stereotypical expressions and postures associated with the lower classes. If
Jordan comes across as unthreatening, perhaps that is because he grew up in
a largely middle-class background. It would seem that on television at least,
the signifiers that we most closely associate with blackness have to do with
the codes of social class more than race.
This critique also fails to acknowledge how black viewers might view
Jordan as embodying "the deepest fantasies black men have of themselves,"
manifesting decency as well as strength. Nelson George argues that like
great black athletes who have preceded him, "Michael Jordan's movements,
boldness and skill allow African-American men to see the best of themselves
projected in the symbolic war of sports."7 George may push the argument a
bit too far, but it is worth noting his claim that black Americans "need"
Michael Jordan - they need access to the "purity and strength" he displays
on the basketball court.8 Even after Jordan's representation has been worked

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56 Nike C u ltu re

through the "circuits of promotional capitalism" it still offers portions of the

black community a symbol of empowerment and dignity. Displacing racial
codes is very different from the erasure of race. The latter does not, and can­
not, occur in a racist society. Rather, as Michael Dyson has observed, the
construction of Michael Jordan as a celebrity icon is tightly woven into a
knotty tangle of meanings that orbit around the subject of race in American
society.

Though basketball is anchored in the metaphoric heart of African­

American culture, Jordan has paradoxically transcended the negative
meanings of race to become an icon of all-American athletic excellence. In
Jordan, the black male body, still associated with menace outside of sports
and entertainment, is made an object of white desire. And black desire
finds in Jordan, through his athletic ability, the still almost exclusive entry
into wealth and fame. He has become the supreme symbol of black cul­
tural creativity in a society that is showing less and less tolerance for black
youth whose support sustained his career. Jordan reflects black culture's
love affair with spontaneity and improvisation, its brash experiments
with performance, its fascination with those who exceed limits. Jordan's
embodiment of these black cultural elements has created in American
society a desire to, in the words of the famous Gatorade media campaign,
"Be Like Mike."9

The Gatorade campaign sought to draft on the coat-tails of Jordan's

Nike image. What's more, this urging to "Be like Mike" [drink Gatorade]
is the kind of copycat, advertising slogan that Nike advertising scorns: the
kind of advertising that magically places the desire for a standout identity
in the passive consumption of a brandname. Nevertheless, through his
agent, David Falk, Jordan has long since made the decision to maximize
his endorsement value with sponsors. The logic of this game - trading
commercial endorsements for lucrative fees in the millions of dollars -
invariably lends itself to a stress on having desirable consumer items.
Given this trail of market calculations it is not surprising that "Black youth
learn to want to 'live large,' to emulate capitalism's excesses on their own
turf."lO
Considering hero worship along the dimension of race magnifies the
cultural contradictions between media-stimulated fantasies and the material
conditions of inequality in everyday life. Quite beyond any intentions of
Nike or Jordan, Jordan's imagery now stands at the intersection of celebrity,
blackness, masculinity, and desire. Jordan's image has been invested with
so much that it now has a life of its own. The complex social and cultural
contradictions between race, class, gender, and the promotional circuits of
hero worship and identification would require a book in themselves. Do
fantasies of hero identification help motivate low-income youth to overcome
their circumstances? Or, are they just another way of keeping those youth

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a Celebrity Democracy 57

locked into desires for material acquisition? We do not have ready answers
to these questions, although we are quite sure that in the real world, there are
no either-or scenarios.

THE MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES OF NIKE

Nike names its shoes after a select group of marquee athletes: Air Jordan,
Air Penny, Air Swoopes, Air Pippin and soon, a Tiger Woods line. Jordan's
"star power" vaulted Nike to the top of the athletic shoe industry as well as
the sports industry in general. Penny Hardaway is jordan's heir apparent,
and Sheryl Swoopes was Nike's first female basketball star as it positions
itself in the booming female athletic market. But, there are lesser gods in
Nike's stable - each with their own distinct abilities and personalities, each
with their own market niche. Phil Knight understood that brand value is
not just about a product but about a sign, so that Nike's representations of
athletes tied fans to the consumption of its products.

People don't concentrate their emotional energy on products in the way

fans abandon themselves to the heroes of their games. But great prod­
ucts that were necessary to great athletic figures, Knight reasoned, could
create customers who were like fans. "Nobody roots for a product,"
Knight would say; the products needed to be tethered to something more
compelling and profound. "

In Decoding Advertisements, Judith Williamson casts the issue theoretically:

it is the first function of an advertisement to create a differentiation between

one particular product and others in the same category. It does this by pro­
viding the product with an "image"; this image only succeeds in differenti­
ating between products in so far as it is part of a system of differences. The
identity of anything depends more on what it is not than what it is, since
boundaries are primarily distinctions: and there are no "natura l " distinctions
between most products [emphasis in originil l ] . "

Consider the Nike ad that presents Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan
in an exaggerated bragging contest about their shoes, set up as a comic ver­
sion of this differentiation process at work. When Barkley boasts, "Hey Mike,
I got my own shoes with my own initials on it," he is bragging about his
sign value. To which Jordan retorts, "Yeah! Well I have my own shoes with
my own name on it." "My shoes got straps." "Laces." "Black." "White. "
"White's wimpy. " "Nike Air. " "Mine's got more." The representation o f the
athlete (both personality and performance) is attached to a particular prod­
uct. Each athlete acts as a signifier for a personality or performance trait (the
signified) that is joined to a particular shoe.

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58 Nike C u lture

Differentiation doesn't just refer to niche markets, it also describes the

relationship between competing commodity signs. When we say that Jordan
increased Nike's sign value, we mean that representations of Jordan increased
the value of the Nike name and icon. What differentiates Nike most from
Reebok, Converse or Fila are the ways in which Nike represents its athletes.
Industry watchers readily agree that Nike has achieved a degree of authen­
ticity that its competitors have not. When Nike represents an athlete in its
commercials, there is a sense we are getting the real thing. Nike seems to respect
its athletes as people, permitting them to display their own personalities.
This appearance is not accidental. In constructing the Penny Hardaway
campaign, Wieden & Kennedy spent hours interviewing Hardaway. "They
asked me everything - the things I like to do, the movies I like to watch."13
Constructing Hardaway as a modest athlete has an authentic feel because
it resembles Hardaway's personality. Likewise, the Barkley - ''I'm not a role
Using humor Nike pokes fun at model" - commercial, although controversial, signified Nike's respect for the
sign vallie while still differentiat­
personality, style, and unmuzzled autonomy of Barkley. By playing off of
ing and promoting it.
its athlete's personality traits, even if it means transgressing acceptable
boundaries, Nike creates a feeling that it allows its spokespersons sufficient
space to speak authentically. They are presented as individuals who are part
of the Nike community and not just pitchmen in the Nike stable. The range of
personalities which Nike offers creates numerous routes to the Nike swoosh. In
fact, Nike has pursued the premise that many consumers liked to be hailed by
anti-heroes as well as heroes.

Consumers seemed to respond best to athletes who combined a pas­

sion to win with a maverick disregard for convention: "Outlaws with
morals," in the words of Watts Wacker, a Yankelovich consultant who
has worked with Nike. Steve Prefontaine, the University of Oregon
track star who regularly tilted with the NCAA and other regulatory
bodies, was Nike's first effective sports icon. Later, when the company
began producing shoes and apparel for other sports, tennis brats John
McEnroe and Andre Agassi, along with basketball bad boy Charles
Barkley, fit the mold perfectly.14

Each Nike athlete signifies a particular personality trait. Taken together

their representations signify authenticity. Rather than thinking of differenti­
ation as a way of distinguishing products from one another, we might think
of it as the process of creating multiple routes to Nike's swoosh. In practical
marketing terms, differentiation enables consumers to connect with specific
product niches while also valuing anything with a swoosh on it. In this sense,
Nike has both multiple personalities and a coherent identity. Nike's athletes
[n "Barkll?1J of Seville" Nike paro­ have styles and personalities which provide different entry points to the
dies opera in an elaborate specta­ Nike totem group.
cle. Reacting to a foul call Barkley
A 1996-1997 ad campaign features commercials that define and differ­
"accidentally" kills the ref
entiate the range of meanings available via Nike's stable of basketball stars -

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Nike a n d the Con struction of a Celebrity Democracy 59

Scottie Pippen, Gary Payton, Damon Stoudamire, Kevin Garnett, and Jason
Kidd. Assembled like music videos, these ads arrange highly idiosyncratic
signifiers together to create a puzzle-like montage that requires interpretive
"labor" on the part of the viewer. Each ad consists of a mysterious amal­
gam of signifiers drawn from a variety of referent systems including the
animal kingdom, the vaults of pop culture kitsch, and music genre. For
example, the Scottie Pippen ad opens, almost dream-like, with Pippen
dressed in a long black coat walking along a pole that extends out from a
skyscraper creating a sense of vertigo, while an announcer intones, "Ladies
and gentlemen, Thelonius Monk." Pippen is surrounded by a flock of caw­
ing crows, obviously matted into the background. And so the ad unfolds
dissociatively, incongruent image followed by incongruent image, set to
breaks or ruptures in the musical soundtrack. The only other spoken com­
ment, situated over game footage of Pippin dunking, seems somehow to
connect Monk with Pippin: "to imply the missing note that is in between."
When the ad concludes with a shot of a stylized painting of Pippen dressed
in a suit holding a basketball in his hands, a crow on his shoulder, and a
cheetah and smokestacks in the background, this seems to be yet another
clue confirming that perhaps we have just watched a portrait of Pippin. But
now we must decipher it.

The commercials from this campaign don't tell stories per se, but
overlay a series of symbolically packed visual metaphors.
Deciphering the puzzles permits viewers to differentiate these
athletes from one another.

Knowledge of Pippen's personality and style of play can supply clues to

making sense of the odd jumble of signifiers: crows; Thelonius Monk; a
streaking cheetah; a simulated bullet ripping through paper in slow motion;
an alarm system, called "Silent Assassin"; shoe shoplifting. The arrange­
ment of signifiers is ambiguous and obscure enough to create space for view­
ers to invent interpretations, to read the symbolic text attentively. As viewers
we reason to ourselves that all these are clues to a jigsaw puzzle that has
"Scottie Pippin" as its answer. OK, so Pippin is a great basketball player, so

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60 Nike C u l tu re

hmmm let's see, how does he stand out. Well,

he's known for his defensive skills, his ability
to steal the ball - perhaps that's why the
images of the crow or the alarm system that
can't prevent theft? The cheetah - well that
seems easy enough, it is super quick and it
finishes off its prey. But the Thelonius Monk
reference is more enigmatic. Perhaps Pippin
enjoys Monk's cerebral jazz? And the refer­
ence to Monk's comment, "to imply the miss­
ing note that is in between" can be stretched
to conjure up Pippin's crucial relationship
with the absent Michael Jordan on the bas­
ketball court. The point here is not that we
have finished interpreting this ad, but rather
Nike associates signifiers ofalter­
native culture with Seattle's point that we have explored the text. Indeed, by ad's end, we are aware that this
guard Gary Payton in a rapidly brief deconstructive odyssey has left us with surplus signifiers and refer­
edited commercial styled after ences that we can't entirely fit into our scheme of meaning. This is also what
m usic videos. happens to us when we view the Gary Payton ad. After viewing the ad at
least two dozen times, while we can readily place Payton in relation to punk
music (he plays for Seattle) or to the reference "fringe agitator" since he dis­
rupts opponents' games from his guard position, the reference to "July 4,
1910" juxtaposed against a gray sky and a skyscraper completely baffles us.
"f am the king! I am the king!"
In her primer on decoding ads, Judith Williamson observes that "ads
chants the narrator. "What does
produce a universe of puzzles - one that we cannot move in without 'deci­
this mean? What does this mean?"
chants the viewer. Formulaic ads phering', one that requires us to stop and work out a solution. "15 The Nike
that offer solutions are boring. In ads mentioned above present an elaborate hermeneutic puzzle. Because the
order to involve commercially sat­ images are placed in unusual ways that do not fit with the customary codes
urated viewers this series doesn't governing television messages, the ads focus the viewer on connecting the
offer solutions.
meaning of the parts to that of the whole.
This challenges the viewer on several levels:
discovering the thread or underlying theme;
recognizing the cultural identity of the fea­
tured athlete; and constructing the signifi­
cance of this or that oddly dangling signifier.
When students watched the Damon Stoud­
amire ads, they kept asking questions like
"why is there a child's drawing of a crown
in there" or "what does that have to do with
Stoudamire?" Even students familiar with
the player and his sports-page defined per­
sona were perplexed. The pleasure of watch­
ing what seem to be schizophrenic texts is
trying to solve the riddle. While Williamson

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a Celebrity Democrac y 61

argued in 1978 that readings of ads tend to be guided along "carefully

defined channels," noting that "a puzzle has only one solution," contempo­
rary ads now encourage multiple solutions that are contingent on the inter­
pretations supplied by the viewer. 16 Ads with simple solutions are boring.
They don't engage or hold viewers. Ambiguity creates interpretative space
and promotes viewer involvement and investment in the ad.

THE COMMUNITY OF SPORT AND PLAY

The contradiction between the desire for individual glory and the desire to be
a part of an egalitarian and democratic community of others plays itself out
throughout American culture. In Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah and his
associates addressed this tension between unbridled individualism and the
desire for community. Bellah argued that American cosmology celebrates
individual success to such a degree that it fails to give adequate voice to the
need for communal belongingness. Without an historically grounded com­
munity, decisions, values, and moral codes are driven by privatized self­
interests and personal feelings and desires. With the disappearance of real
communities of memory, the desire for community becomes expressed as
nostalgia. Nevertheless, the yearning for community remainsY
While much of Nike advertising addresses the autonomous individual,
a surprising number of spots also dwell on the social character of sporting
activity. In recent years, Nike ads about rugby in the snow, tennis in a NY
City street intersection, and kid's street hockey have pivoted on the social
side of sport. A car hom beeps and a kid hollers "Car!" Thus begins a street
hockey commercial patterned after the Dr. Seuss story, And To Think That I
Saw It On Mulberry Street. The kids clear the goal nets off the street to let the
car pass and then resume playing. Moments later a kid yells "Motorcycle
gang!" and a group of bikers pass through. Next a kid yells "Marathon,"
and a marathon passes by. This is followed by "Parade ! " complete with
marching band, floats, cheerleaders, and a beauty queen blowing kisses.
Finally, a kid yells "Stampede" and a black frame appears with "Just do it"
bouncing up and down to the ground-shaking stampede in the background.
The musical background is lively and upbeat, punctuated by the "whack!
whack!" of slapping the puck. The ad's humor is based on exaggerating the
social experience of kids' informal play. Though the ad speaks to kids, it
also nostalgically engages older audiences about that time in their lives when
the spontaneous community of childhood games battled cars for control of
the street. Most importantly, the spontaneity of play transcends social con­
ventions. Similarly, a Sampras-Agassi tennis commercial plays on this social
control of the street. Sampras instructs a NYC cab driver, "Looks pretty good.
Stop right here." He and Agassi hop out, stop traffic and set up a net. With Sport transforms the street into an
punk music defining the background they aggressively overhit balls at one instant community.

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62 Nike C u lture

another on their hastily-assembled street court. A crowd gathers and cheers

them on. In this ad the pleasure of sport takes place as a form of transgres­
sion. Play transcends the socially proscribed use of urban traffic space, and
an instant community is born. City workers, pedestrians, automobiles all
stop, taking a moment to share the pleasure of disobeying the repressive
order of everyday routines, until a city bus comes barreling through the net,
ending the break and restoring order. Rather than view these as merely
amusing yarns, we take these to be parables reflecting Nike's philosophy.
These ads portray space and time as social constructs that can be overcome
by the will to play. The spirit of sport restructures social space, carving out
conviviality in the most unlikely places - marking off a rugby field by spray­
painting red lines on a blanket of snow; children's informal play communi­
ties carving out space for play wherever the opportunity presents itself; or
the forcible seizure of a traffic intersection governed by laws and regula­
tions to create a fugitive tennis court as a theater for the passion of play. The
latter of course assembles not a community of players, but a community of
spectators brought together by the staging of Nike's guerrilla theater.

Celebrating the game

"The game" refers to that which is sacred in sport. The game is pure and
simple. At its basic level it is a set of rules that govern relationships and per­
formance. Within this set of rules everyone is equal. It does not matter who
you are but what you do. As soon as one enters the circle of the game, one's
ability and determination magically displace class, race, gender, and age.
The game is the pure form of sociality - play. Like society, the game has a his­
tory and a future which transcends the individual. On playgrounds, in parks,
in school yards, in stadiums, and on TV the game not only empowers the
individual but also represents a space in which community still exists. The
"love" for the game recognizes a world greater than the individual.
In our society there are two recognized threats to the game - com­
modification and spectacularization, or more concretely, money and the
media. These forces are seen as intrusions into the essence of the game, the
pure form of sociality. Here, there is an odd congruity between Nike's position
and the sociological approach of Robert Bellah. Both "theories" - Bellah's
and Nike's - disregard capital as a force that structures privatized lives. And
yet, each in its own way recognizes the pernicious impact of markets on cul­
ture and community life. Like Bellah, Nike's solution to this dilemma is ide­
alist. Bellah speaks to desires for secular re-spiritualization. Nike similarly
poses the activity of sport as highly spiritualized: the means of finding one­
self and belonging to a community of others.
The celebrity athlete embodies the conflict between the sacred (the
game) and the secular (commercialization) . Representations of the super
athlete signify human transcendence, but those representations are con-

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a Celebrity Democracy 63

structed by media, sport corporations, and advertisers to serve their own

materialistic ends. The athlete as a celebrity is a threat to the pure form of the
game. Bigger contracts and proliferating endorsements prompt fans to sus­
pect that money rather than the love of the game is the prime motivation.
Consequently, the athlete must be regularly purified of his/her materialistic
motives. When Michael Jordan retired from basketball to play minor league
baseball, Nike used the opportunity to celebrate Jordan's purity of soul and
motives by humorously casting his retirement as a consequence of his desire
to preserve his deep love for the essence of basketball, the game. The tongue
in cheek comments on Jordan's retirement made by members of the profes­
sional basketball sports fraternity provide the narration for the ad which
tracks Jordan in various disguises - wearing a beard, a wig, goggles, a trench­
coat - as he plays basketball with minor league teams like Las Cruces, Gary,
Billings, and the Crawfish.

John Thompson: If Michael is out there still playing, the message is clear. Here
is the guy who is the greatest player of all times letting nothing stand in his
way doing what he loves to do. And that's just play basketball.
Marv Albert: I think he had to get awayfrom everything. It all overwhelmed
him. I can understand Michael playing in disguise.
Michael Irvin: You can't blame the man. This man just wants to play the game.
Ahmad Rashad: I think that he got so tired of the hype and so tired of the media
that he wanted to find a place that he could play and really have fun.
Dan Majerle: I think that he's a little bored. I think he wants to come backfor the
competition. And he wants a chance to come out and score some points and
play against his old friends again.
David Robinson: I think that Mike is doing this just to get away from the insan-
ity ofpro basketball - the hype.
B.J. Armstrong: The pressure.
Marv Albert: The media. j.,. 1 "·'� I
.,
II ' �",: .
.. 1 •

r
Dennis Rodman: The refs.
Spike Lee: The commercials.
Chris Webber: Nah! I think he's scared of me.
Harold Miner: Or maybe Mike is doing this just because he wants to be a player
> J. fff
:. .. .
,. ' �
.
..

t
,

again.
Can you identifij this mystery
Nike encourages an exaggerated self-awareness when these commen­ athlete?
tators speak directly to the camera (to us) as they speculate on why Jordan
retired from the NBA - because of the hype, the media, the commercials,
the pressure, all answers that focus on the commercialization and the spec­
tacularization of sport. When Spike Lee holds up a pair of shoes and blames
commercials for Jordan's retirement, Nike playfully critiques itself. By poking
fun at itself and its role in creating the hype and spectacle that drove Jordan
from the NBA, Nike hails the cynical viewer and then deflates both criticism

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64 Nike C u lture

and cynicism by humor. This is another example of the knowing wink.

Throughout the commercial Nike's icon remains pure. Jordan, the king of
sign value, is shown transcending the hype because his love for the game
remains strong. What does Jordan want to do? Just play the game, to be a
player again. What motivates him? His love for the game. In spite of the
spectacle, Jordan and his fellow players remain pure at heart in their love
of the game. Here at the center of sports, lies something which cannot be
commodified, our love of the game. The commercial also permits us back­
stage among a fraternity of men who play the game, and who share a sense
of camaraderie, respect, and shared purpose. Nike constructs the relation­
ship of these athletes to their work in a way that reproduces C. Wright Mills'
ideals of craftsmanship - internal motivation, a unity of work and leisure,
and work as play.18
Like the Michael Jordan retirement commercial, the "Play ball" com­
mercial uses a similar structural form to celebrate the sociability of an athletic
community held together by the shared culture of the game. Sociability is
expressed by the cut up dialogue in which players complete each other's
sentences and finish jokes, suggesting a shared intertextual culture (knowl­
edge of the game's history as well as contemporary events linked to ath­
letes) organized around baseball.

Cal Ripken: I believe that hitting a round ball with a round bat
Kirby Puckett: is the hardest thing to do in all sports.
Raul Mondesi: I believe that Roberto Clemente is the patron saint of baseball . . .

Kurt Gibson: I believe in the designated hitter.

Don Mattingly: I believe that Lou Gehrig's birthday should be a national holiday . . .

Ken Griffey: I believe walls are hard.

Don Mattingly: I believe that no one is bigger than the game
Matt Williams: except maybe Boog Powell.
Don Mattingly: I believe somebody,
Kirby Puckett: somewhere,
Kurt Gibson: understands the infield fly rule.
Ken Griffey: I believe it's time to sing.
Don Mattingly: Take me out to the ball game (he sings)
Matt Williams: I believe that even I sing better than Don Mattingly.
Mike Piazza: I believe that.
Kirby Puckett: And I believe that every player should have a day offafter 2160 games.
Matt Williams: I believe that dome stadiums are great
Ken Griffey: for tractor pulls.
Kurt Gibson: I believe that the two greatest words
Don Mattingly: in the English language
Matt Williams: are play ball . . .
Don Mattingly: I believe if Shoeless Joe Jackson were playing today he'd have a
shoe contract.

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Nike a n d the Con structi o n of a Celebrity Democracy 65

This culture has a history (references to Lou Gehrig, Boog Powell,

Shoeless Joe Jackson) and a sense of the sacred with its patron saint Roberto
Clemente. Players joke about one another (Don Mattingly "can't sing," Tony
Gwynn "sleeps with his bat") and make self-referential jokes about them­
selves and the game (Ken Griffey's comment about playing in the Seattle
Kingdome plagued by falling tiles), while also speaking with admiration
about each other (Kirby Puckett's bow to Cal Ripken's record of consecu­
tive games played). Insider jokes signify a shared culture. Any game or team
that has continuity develops a comparable culture. This shared culture and
bonding mechanism parallels that constructed in everyday life by those who
have played on a softball team (Nike's other commercial about the octoge­
narian Kubs), noon-time basketball, or playground basketball. In a social
world that has become, by and large, privatized, this Nike ad invites viewers
to share in this sports community through knowledge of the game, or more
importantly, through knowledge of the ad itself - being able to identify the
players and knowing the background to the joking references. Recognizing
players and their intertextual banter serves as the criterion for admission to
the baseball fraternity.
After the screen has gone to the Nike logo, the camera returns to Don
Mattingly saying, "I believe if Shoeless Joe Jackson were playing today he'd
have a shoe contract." Mattingly's banter has now turned on our host as he
jokes about Nike's habit of signing the stars of the game. The reference to
Shoeless Joe Jackson demands some minimal knowledge of baseball legend
and lore. To fully appreciate the insider's joke shared by Mattingly with Nike
we need to know that Shoeless Joe was an old-time ballplayer. Legend has it
that Shoeless Joe was just a good 01' country boy who purely loved to play
baseball. But he got caught up in the Chicago Blacksox scandal in the 1919
World Series and betrayed the integrity of the game. Shoeless Joe thus
became a fallen celebrity of some interest because he represented the cul­
tural tension between playing for the love of sport and the immorality of
money. The story has been revived and romanticized by the baseball film
Field of Dreams, and more recently has been a subject of attention in Ken
Bum's epic history of baseball and in John Sayles' cinematic rendering of
the Blacksox scandal. At any rate, with the last barb flung back at itself, Nike
pokes fun at itself, thus including itself into the community of Nike athletes.
Ads like this celebrate the community organized around the game itself.
The All-Star Game is the perfect venue not just because it has celebrity ath­
letes but because the game celebrates the sport itself. References to the love
of the game abound in commercials. Reebok depicted its celebrity athletes
playing pick-up ball in gyms to demonstrate that "you gotta have the love"
Vulgar commercialization: the
and, of course, NBA promos use the slogan "I love this game." Though the
NBA transforms its own tagline I
latter is but a hollow tagline that celebrates the commercialization of bas­
LOVE THIS GAME into I LOVE
ketball when it is positioned adjacent to a series of spectacular images of THIS STUFF to hype NBA
players and fans displaying intense emotion, the simple reference to "the branded clothing.

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66 Nike C u lture

game" legitimizes NBA practices. In a society inundated by commercialism,

references to a mythical essence of sport provide an imaginary core of mean­
ing. The litany of "I believe" in Nike's All-Star Game "Play ball" commer­
cial resembles a religious service. Ironically, the commercial has two endings:
love for the game and a Nike shoe contract. After all, are the two greatest
words in the English language "play ball" or "shoe contract"?

Joining the N i ke community

The meanings of sports have anchored male public culture for much of the
twentieth century. During the previous century, male culture revolved more
around tools and making things, or politics. Nike and Wieden & Kennedy rec­
ognize that sport has slowly replaced work, religion and community as the
glue of collective consciousness in latter twentieth century America. To be
sure, Nike's advertising is not unique in extolling the therapeutic merits of
ministering to body and spirit through athletic activity. Such ads have
become so prolific that a 1995 public service style ad for a religious organi­
zation mimics the look and feel of Soloflex ads as a lure to enjoining viewers
to attend that other "temple" this weekend. As secular religion, few ads
have more explicitly caught the metaphor of your body as a temple than
the Nike "Don't rush" ad campaign for their women's fitness products. Nike's
men's ads have been less likely to express this blend of therapeutic narcis­
sism, stressing instead sociability. Male sports banter lies at the heart of this
advertising - banter similar to that which once shaped, for both better and
worse, a proletarian public sphere; and banter that we today associate, thanks
to the media, with trash-talking in black urban culture.
Nike ads create a community of athletes who share the Nike philoso­
phy: they play intensely because they love the game. While the Jordan retire­
ment ad emphasizes that philosophy, it also constructs a Nike community
based on sports talk. This includes media hype, advertising discourse, shop
talk - strategies, evaluation of players, statistics, and predictions. Media dis­
course and informal conversation intermix. These stars have become part
of the sports fan's family and he/ she part of theirs - at least within the spec­
tacle. But there is also an informal discourse that defines the community -
trash-talking, jiving, and teasing. For example, when Webber suggests that
Jordan quit because he is scared of playing against him, Mullins shares with
us a look of humorous disbelief. Viewers are positioned as part of this cama­
raderie. We are included in the playful exchanges. We are invited into the
conversation, and into the community.
Wieden & Kennedy does not just offer the privatized inspiration of body
worship, but also a sense of community that can be articulated around sports.
Notice, for example, how often Nike has returned to old-style barbershops
as a stage for their men's ads. Considered as an iconic index of small town
and neighborhood cornrnunitas, in recent decades the barbershop has been

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Nike a n d the Con structi on of a Celebrity Democracy 67

supplanted by franchised haircutters and hair boutiques. But Nike has resu­
rrected the barbershop as a site for the social activity of male banter, recalling
a time when the local barbershop was a slow-moving place for local organic
intellectuals to dispense their commentary on the world.
The barbershop has served as the site for banter among Nike's bas­
ketball stars. David Robinson, Dennis Rodman, Tim Hardaway, George
Gervin, Chris Webber, and others have appeared in these barbershop ads.
One such Nike commercial resurrects George "Iceman" Gervin, a profes­
sional scoring sensation two decades back. Tun Hardaway comments about
a now-dated picture of Gervin in a white jump suit with ICE inscribed on it.
"Walk outside with that on in San Antonio now. You'll bum up." This elic­
its howls of laughter. "Tell us about that finger roll from the free throw
line." Gervin responds to Hardaway'S friendly encouragement. "You know
that was my patented, that was my patented shot. One thing I could do
was finger roll." Everyone laughs as Gervin holds an old red, white, and
blue ABA ball to demonstrate. The players are seated in a semi-circle. The
camera (the audience) occupies the empty side to complete the circle. The
sound quality of the commercial makes the jesting particularly difficult to
follow. Stacy Wall of Wieden & Kennedy says this was intentional. "If you
are a fan, you would love to be part of this community. Straining to under­
stand the banter makes you lean in to listen." It literally draws the listener
into this mini-community of athletes. You feel as if you were sitting in that
barbershop waiting for your haircut. The cinematography and editing
mimic a cinema verite style of swish pans and jump cuts. Even when high­
lights of Gervin doing his finger roll are edited into the commercial, we
see them on a TV monitor within the frame as if the highlights were part of
the flow of events in the barbershop. Here, the spectacle of basketball is
the spectacle of community signified by the pleasure of spontaneous banter.
It is spectacle as pure sociability. The commercial appellates us as part of
this community - jiving, teasing, and participating in the verbal play of Nike apropriates Superfly style
shared communal experience. jor its logo.

Just like you and me

While its advertising connects elite athletes to the Nike brand, it also creates
space for the rest of us. Nike advertising celebrates transcendent values in
ordinary people. Indeed, if all Nike did was to extol great athletes, it would
probably find itself in a neck and neck race with the Reeboks of the indus­
try. Instead, the Nike swoosh has come to stand for the athlete in all of us.
This takes us back to what we have called Nike's motivational discourses. In
the late 1980s, Nike ran a series of ads that spoke to "our" human spirit. The
most engaging piece in this series featured an 80-year-old named Walt Stack
jogging across the Golden Gate Bridge. His voice-over deadpans, "I run 1 7
miles every morning. People ask me how I keep my teeth from chattering in

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68 Nike C u lture

the winter time. I leave them in my locker." Another low-key ad in this series
followed a woman running up a steep hill as she speaks to us, "A few years
ago I would have had trouble walking up this hill. I smoked. I drank. I was
fat. I didn't do a lick of exercise in my life. So I started jogging. Who says
you can't run away from your problems. " Title cards on the screen identify
her as "Priscilla Welch. Winner, New York Marathon at age 42." There is no
razzle-dazzle here, only the mundane linked quietly to an extraordinary
"It's gotta be the shoes. Well, maybe accomplishment. Nike celebrates the heroic potential in all of us. During the
it's the oysters. "
1995 All-Star Game Nike also ran a commercial titled "Kids and Kubs" about
a softball team composed of players over 75 years old. George Bakewell, a
101-year-old, gets a base hit and then quips, " It's gotta be the shoes. Well,
maybe it's the oysters. " No one seems to be excluded from participating.
Every athletic accomplishment is worthy of note. Nike positions sport as a
non-exclusionary space where achievement, satisfaction and sociability can
flower. Individual achievement, however, is not merely a signified but a sig­
nifier. It stands for the human spirit, for universal humanism, for partici­
pating in the human community in general. Perhaps this is only an overused
sports cliche, but it is a very powerful one. With its "Just do it" tagline and its
representations Nike has fostered increased participation in sport as well as
increased self-esteem and self-confidence.
Ads such as these are why Nike is so often praised for messages of
empowerment. When Wieden & Kennedy chose to use John Lennon's song
"Instant Karma" to frame one of its everyone-plays TV ads, the agency did
so because the stirring lyric "We all shine on" perfectly framed the ethos of
sport Nike wanted to convey. In ads like this, and the "Time of Hope" ad
discussed below, Nike locates itself as the Human Spirit that infuses and
inspires a community of play and satisfaction. In these ads, sport is pre­
sented as an end in itself, and not as a means to other ends (like money,
fame, and privilege). It is no accident that Nike's competitors have begun to
copy this approach. Reebok's 1995 woman's campaign offers an explicit pan­
humanist valuation of persons: "There is an athlete within all of us. " This
represents a partial return to the middle class ideals of amateur sport circa
1900 when the Greek value of sport was seen as offering an arena in which
individual human character could be shaped to its highest ends in contrast
to commercialized and professionalized sports.

TRANSCENDENCE IN THE HUMAN COMMUNITY

An aesthetic referent for classic humanism is The Family of Man, an exhibi­

tion created by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art in 1955.19
Composed of 503 photographs from 68 countries covering approximately a
100 year period, it was organized around universals - death, gestures (smiles,
tears), family relations, play, work, war. The Family ofMan constructed human

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a Celebrity Democracy 69

essence based on participation in these experiences. We are born, we work,

we play, we cry, we laugh, and we die. Ergo we are human.
As corporations like Nike participate in the global order they search for
both new markets and new resources of production (cheaper labor). In this
context, advertising cannot just sell products, it must also legitimate the cor­
porate sponsor as a source of meaning. Classical humanism modeled after
The Family of Man exhibition offers a stylistic look which positions the cor­
poration as global, as pan-human, as multicultural. Wieden & Kennedy has
embellished the Nike philosophy around this look and the philosophy of
classical humanism. In the P.L.A.Y. and "Time of Hope" ad campaigns, dif­
ferences between people in Nike's world are reduced to representations of
the common ability in all of us to prevail over our circumstances. Nike enjoins
viewers not to capitulate to the injustices of circumstance and difference
(being poor, black, a woman, or confined to a wheelchair).
The "Time of Hope" ad compiled images drawn from Nike's stock of
commercials that mix age, gender, race, amateur and professional athletes. A
medley of sports activities compose the ad - baseball, track, volleyball, soc­
cer, basketball, wheelchair marathon, and bicycling. The ad's first sequence
of images is kinetic, each scene an action waiting to be completed - a boy
preparing to swing a bat, a playground basketball player about to dunk,
runners starting a race. The concluding sequence of cuts offers correspond­
ing finishing actions - a dunk, Ken Griffey hitting a baseball, a wheelchair
athlete crossing the finish line. Children tend to be shown in less organized
play activities, while adults are involved in organized games. "A Time of
Hope" celebrates a social democracy where there exists no apparent hier­
archy of importance. Parity is created between the amateur and the profes­
sional, the child and the adult - each represented as equally important. For
example, the match cut shown here pairs Barkley pulling down a rebound
with a young girl trying to momentarily balance a basketball on her head.
Amid the flow of images shown in this inspirational sequence, a Nike
shoe appears but once, approximately 20 seconds into the ad. Hence, this
does not register as a product ad, but as Nike's celebration of the true mean­
ings of sports etched across faces and bodies - meanings of intensity and
determination, of awe and enjoyment. Using a telephoto lens to blur the
background heightens the expressivity of the human face and eyes with
their expressions of pleasure, determination, and intensity. Because the ad
represents a celebration of the human will, the background doesn't matter; it
disappears, whether it is a stadium or the street or a ghetto. The black and
white ad uses hyperreal techniques including jump cuts, swish pans, and
staccato editing to intermix these poignant images with frames of heavily
scratched high contrast film that momentarily burst between the images.
As noted earlier, these scratches were intended to signify the opposite of
soft drink ads that imply the acquisition of traits magically through the prod­
uct image. The scratches signify a "rawer, edgier" tone and visually provoke

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70 Nike C u lture

and amplify the ad's feeling of intensity. The music, cobbled together from
several cuts by a band called Buffalo Tom, supports this feeling and builds
throughout. The copy that appears across the screen celebrates these
moments:

When all that is BEITER

is before us.
A time of HOPE.
HOPE fastened to a GAME.
HOPE not so much to be
the Best to ever play the Game,
But simply to stay in the game.
And RIDE it
WHEREVER it goes.
JUST DO lT.

Throughout, Nike celebrates participation over success. Yet make no

mistake, this ad continues to build Nike's sign value, by maintaining a tension
between the Nike stable of star athletes (Barkley, Griffey, Jordan) and the
everyday player. Just as the screen reads "Hope not so much to be the Best to
ever play the game, But simply to stay in the game," "the Best" appears
across a closeup of Michael Jordan.
The emotional texture of Nike's inspirational ads separates them from
competitors. This ad overflows with a sense of genuine humanity. Nike hails
each viewer personally through the mix of images, music, and technique
that inspires the viewer to feel as if he or she can "just do it." Although Nike
commercials encourage viewers to identify with its celebrity athletes, they
also hail viewers as potentially sharing the same heroic traits of determina­
tion, hard work, and desire to go beyond one's personal limits. Nike adver­
tising hails us to be part of the universal community of athletes. They include
anyone who perceives her/himself as an athlete or a potential athlete. The
Nike community is for everyone who demonstrates athletic determination. It
is not the athlete that Nike so well signifies but the athletic spirit. In this
sense Nike has tapped into the mythology of sport in ways which its com­
petitors have at best occasionally imitated. This appellation method is pop­
ulist and inclusive. Depicting HOPE fastened to a GAME suggests a better
future when we allow people to realize themselves through sport. While
Nike preaches an anti-elitist humanism, it also appeals to an almost­
Nietzschean will to power as a route to an emergent self - is this everyman
a superman or is this superman in everyman?
It's nice to be addressed this way, particularly in an advertising and
celebrity culture which continually positions viewers in terms of "abuse
value, cynical seduction and chronic humiliation."2o Throughout the ad, the
faces of children register the joys of sport. Images such as a small boy wearing

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a Celeb rity Democrac y 71

a miniature Detroit Tigers uniform or a Dominican child with his ann around
a pal's shoulder connote a classic humanism or Nike's version of The Family of
Man. This ad provides viewers with the space in which to feel good about
one another without actually having to socialize with others. The mixture
of realism and romance in this video album tugs at deeply frustrated desires
to realize our species being - our essence realized socially. The ad closes on
this utopian desire.
A recurrent theme in Nike ads is this decontextualized humanism - the
stress placed on an abstract, but universal right of men, women, and chil­
dren to sports and play. This resonates with Phil Knight's view that " Access
to play should be a kid's inalienable right." If celebration of this utopian
moment is Nike's primary ideological achievement, so also then, its central
tendency to abstract rather than contextualize highlights the greatest weak­
ness of Nike's social and cultural philosophy of sports. For what good is a
guarantee of an abstract right in a society governed by the full commodifi­
cation of resources?
To universalize an experience it must be decontextualized - removed
from time and place, disconnected from socio-historical context - and then
recontextualized around "chosen" universals. The Family of Man removed
dates. The activity in each frame was given meaning by its shared similar­
ity with adjacent photographs. Biblical, Native American, and literary quotes,
also decontextualized, helped construct the overall themes of the exhibit.
Universality was reduced to a maxim. The photographic traces of historical
detail were made to signify the universal existential qualities of being human.
How easily the logic of advertising parallels this process: (1) select sig­
nifieds; (2) decontextualize them from their historical moments; (3) recon­
textualize each as a signifier in relation to other decontextualized signifiers;
(4) frame these with a slogan. As Berger and Mohr note: "All photographs
are ambiguous. All photographs have been taken out of a continuity . . .
Discontinuity always produces ambiguity."21 Decontextualization is the
nature of the medium. When this is understood, we must ask: how are
images framed? what motivates their assemblage? what surplus meanings
do these encodings give rise to?
Nike uses a photographic style which idealizes individuals. It mixes
realism with classicism - ghetto landscapes with low angle shots of soaring
basketball players, wheelchair athletes racing down a curved hill, impov­
erished children smiling to the pleasure of play. Alienation and affliction are
the background for the celebration of the human spirit. Subjectivity is
removed from existential conditions (time and place) and reframed in rela­
tion to a human essence - signifiers of alienation plus signifiers of determi­
nation equals transcendence. And it is sport (play) which is the activity
which provides the space for transcendence. As long as one stays in the
game, life has meaning. One participates in the human community defined
by the characteristic that makes us human, the ability to transcend.

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72 Nike C u lture

The blurred backgrounds in ads like "A Tune of Hope" obscure the speci­
ficity of time and place. This ad highlighted the conventions of abstraction
that underlie classical humanism, erasing contextual features in the interest of
stressing a universal human essence. Barthes criticized the classic humanist
perspective for removing the realm of experience from the flow of history.

Everything here, the content and appeal of the pictures, the discourse
which justifies them, aims to suppress the determining weight of History:
we are held back at the surface of an identity, prevented precisely by sen­
timentality from penetrating into this ulterior zone of human behavior
where historical alienation introduces some "differences" which we shall
here quite simply call "injustices".22

This kind of abstraction is also a defining mark of modern consumer­

goods advertising premised on an assumption of abstract consumption that
poses relationships between products and product-mediated characteristics
as potentially uniform, rather than as contingent on the biographical posi­
tions of individual consumers.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Donald R. Katz, Just Do It: the Nike Spirit il1 the Corporate World (Random House, New
York, 1994), p. 466.
2. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: Americal1 Life il1 the Age of Dimil1ishil1g
Expectatiol1s (Warner, New York, 1979).
3. Philip Martin, "Sport's mostly just entertainment, despite the earnest ad campaigns,"
Arkal1sas Democrat-Gazette, November 5 1995, p. I E .
4. Gene Yasuda, "Making Penny a Shoe-Biz Star," The Orlal1do Sentil1el, October 29 1995,
p. A I .
5 . Ibid.
6. David 1. Andrews, "The facts of Michael Jordan's blackness: excavating a floating
racial signifier," Sociology of Sports Joumal, 13 (1996), p. 140.
7. Nelson George, "Rare Jordan," Essence, 27, 7 (November 1 1995), p. 106.
8. Ibid., p. 106.
9. Michael Dyson, Between God and Gal1gsta Rap (Oxford University Press, New York,
1996), p. 58.
10. Ibid.
11. Katz, Just Do It, p. 6.
12. Judith Williamson, Decodil1g Advertisemel1ts (Marion Boyars, London, 1978), p. 24.
13. Yasuda, "Making Penny a shoe-biz star," p. A I .
1 4 . Kenneth Labich, "Nike v s . Reebok: a battle for hearts, minds, and feet," Fortune,
September 18 1995, pp. 90ff.
15. Williamson, Decoding Advertisements, p. 71.
16. Ibid.
17. Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M.
Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism al1d Commitment in American Life (Harper, New
York, 1985).

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Nike a n d the C o n struction of a C e l ebrity Democracy 73

1 8 . C. Wright Mills, Wllife Col/ar: The Allierical l Middle Class (Oxford University Press, New
York, 1956).
1 9. Edward Steichen, The Fall/illl of Mall (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1 955).
20. Arthur Kraker and Michael Weinstein, Data Trash: The Theory of tile Virtllal Class (St
Martin's Press, New York, 1 994).
2 1 . John Berger and Jean Mohr, A l lotlier Way of Lookillg (Pantheon, New York, 1 982),
p. 91 .
22. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, translated by Amlette Lavers (Hill and Wang, New York,
1972), p. 1 01.

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 4.
REFLEXIVITY AND
IRREVERENCE

CONSTRUCTING IRREVERENCE AND SIGN VALUE

Nike's public image and corporate persona has been shaped by its ability to
distance itself from the "dirty" side of commercialization. This distance has
been achieved, in part, via an advertising style that engages in ironic wink­
ing, humor, irreverence, and even cynicism. Nike advertising characterized by
these elements is heavily media referential. This chapter explores Nike's use
of self-conscious irreverence to construct both its viewers and itself as savvy
media-literate subjects.
From 1972 to 1987, Nike grew with only modest reliance on advertis­
ing. Towards the end of this first major growth swing, Nike fell into a period
of disarray and stagnation. Then, the company shifted its advertising to
Wieden & Kennedy. From 1987 to 1993 Nike rose to dominance within the
booming athletic footwear industry.
Reputedly, on his first meeting with
Comparative Share of the Footwear Market Dan Wieden, Phil Knight introduced
himself by saying, 'Tm Phil Knight
50% and I hate advertising."! This perhaps
apocryphal story gets at the key to
40%
Nike's construction of their commod­
30% ity sign. Wieden understood the
imperative behind this statement,
20%
a Nike because his agency was based pre­
10% • Reebok cisely in opposition to the tradition of
0%
American broadcast advertising that
predominated from the 1950s through
the mid 1980s. In his full-length orga­
1 995
nizational biography of the Wieden &
Kennedy agency, Randall Rothenberg
has documented how it evolved as a

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Reflexivity a n d I rreve rence 75

West Coast advertising agency in opposition to the metropolitan domina­

tion of the industry by large New York and Chicago agencies." This distaste
for advertising formulas would emerge as one axis of the Nike advertising
aesthetic. In addition to its inspirational and motivational themes, Nike cul­
tivated an ironic and reflexive awareness about the role of ads in daily life.
One analyst sums up Nike's advertising appeal:

. . . its success in tapping and communicating a consistent set of values

that many people in the 1970s and 1980s identified with: hipness, irrev­
erence, individualism, narcissism, self-improvement, gender equality,
racial equality, competitiveness, and health .'

Campaigns starring Michael Jordan and Spike Lee, and Bo Jackson (the
"Bo knows" series of commercials) in the late 1980s and early 1990s estab­
lished Nike's swoosh logo as the premiere sign in the consumer marketplace.
And the corresponding Nike slogan, "Just do it," became a part of the lan­
guage of everyday life. These campaigns relied heavily on a self-reflexive
and media-referential attitude that projected a sense of humor about them­
selves and about advertising in general. They were irreverent and self-effac­
ing. As Nike officials like to point out, they want to communicate with their
audience in ways that say "we don't take ourselves or our ads too seriously."
Nike ads distinguished themselves from the crowd by raising criticisms of
over-commercialized celebrities and the role of advertising in promoting
the fetish of commodities where, like Barbie and Ken, objects seem to acquire
a life of their own.
Nike's profile of self-awareness has developed over time through a
range of ads that address the relationship between brand identity and con­
sumer identity. In consumer advertising, the most familiar formula posi­
tions viewers to step into an imaginary mirror where they can look to find an
imaginary self, a self made better by having this product and its image. Shoe
ads, like fashion advertising, tended to appeal to viewers in terms of a desire
to identify with athletic heroes, and every once in a while, a superhero like
Michael Jordan. Hero identification figured large in Nike's success during
the late 1980s and early 1990s, when it not only had Jordan and Bo, but also
Charles Barkley, David Robinson, and Andre Agassi. Jordan is the much­
publicized king of advertising endorsements measured in dollars. In the
over-rationalized calculations that scale the value of athletes as commodities
for boosting the value of brands, Jordan scored an "athlete influence rating"
of 4.46.� We treat such statistical constructs, no matter how absurd, of Jordan's
endorsement value to advertisers as a measure of his capacity to generate
sign value. Summaries of competitive sign values are reported annually in
top ten lists such as the "Most Wanted Sports Spokespersons" and Michael
Jordan has topped these lists since 1988.� Nike and its ad agency, Wieden &
Kennedy, adroitly exploited Jordan's sign value, while balancing it against a

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76 Nike C u ltu re

growing indifference, and even resistance, toward advertising's general stress

on wearing badges of popularity and finding identity in the commodities
the consumer chooses.
As we have noted, Nike's pairing of Spike Lee and Michael Jordan
created a playful buffer zone to distance Nike from its own marketing
agenda. As played by Spike Lee, Mars is the consummate fan, who in the
movie She's Gotta Have It is so tight with his sneakers that he wears them
during lovemaking.6 Mars appreciates Jordan's greatness (whom he refers
to as "Money" because Jordan is like money in the bank when it comes to
making clutch shots with the game on the line). But the key to these ads
was the knowing attitude that Mars brought about the nature of the adver­
tisement itself: in one ad, he self-consciously interrupts what he is saying
and yells out the window behind him, "Hey, shut up ! I'm doing a com­
mercial here. " Mars also disrupts the usual assumptions about the rela­
tionship between celebrity endorsement and commodity fetishism. In one
spot he repeatedly constructs an opposition between the shoes and Jordan's
talents.

This is something you can buy.

This is a patented, vicious, high-flying 360 slam-dunk.
"This you can buy. "
This is something you cannot do. Let me repeat myself.
This you can buy [shows shoes] .
You cannot do this [shows Jordan dunk].
Can. Can't.

Not surprisingly, this ad has been widely mimicked in the last few years:
today, Starter (branded athletic wear) and Sprite (soft drink) have built cam­
paigns that humorously show how consuming their product will, big sur­
"You cannot do this. " prise, not actually give you the ability to dunk, even symbolically. The failed,
but humorous, effort at dunking has become nearly as common in today's
advertising as was the effortless dunk five years ago.
In advertising today there is a tension between the need for an image
that stands out and the impulse to copy the most popular styles and strate­
gies. Nike's willingness to engage in self-conscious criticism of consumerism
is no longer a novel advertising strategy, when Sprite routinely spoofs brands
that promote image fetishism in their "Image is Nothing" campaign. This
style of advertising can be called "anti-advertising," insofar as it calls atten­
tion to the generic practices of advertising itself. Sprite's parody of conven­
tional soft-drink ads is illustrative. The ad begins with a beach party scene
and a jingle, "Just open up a Jooky, it's a party in a can. It's so fun and fruity
you'll be dancin' in the sand . . . Jooky, Jooky, it's a party in a can." As the
camera pulls back to reveal two stoned teens watching this commercial on
TV, they pop open a couple of cans and when nothing happens, one
observes, "Oh man, mine's busted."

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Reflexi v i ty a n d I rreverence 77

While Nike's critical, winking ads self-consciously express the tension

between Nike's entertainment persona and Nike's authenticity persona, they
also illustrate how advertisers learned to cater to viewers finding pleasure in
the act of deciphering the ad itself. Nike shares jokes with its viewers based
on familiarity with pop culture, and crucially, with its own previous ads.
Viewers who appreciate Nike commercials usually refer to the pleasure of
"getting the joke." Nike's ads flatter these viewers, hailing them as part of a
select group who can decipher the wry meta-media humor embedded in
the ad.
Obvious exaggeration and self-parody are joined to a sense of playful
irreverence in such Nike ads. In one ad featuring Deion Sanders and Jerry
Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys), two of the most blatantly mercenary
figures in contemporary sports, Jones yells into a phone, "I don't care what
it takes. You get me Deion." Switzer, the Dallas Cowboys coach, asks, "Deion
are you ready?" As he grabs his helmet and enters the game, Sanders
declares, "I was born ready." When Sanders intercepts the ball and runs past
cheerleaders for a touchdown, Jones exclaims, "Hot dang! If I had 11 men In another commercial Nike sati­
like that I could rule the world." He looks out over a crowd holding a banner rizes owner/player relationships.
This commercial appropriates both
with a swoosh on it. This commercial parodies the spectacle and its formulas.
the style and ideology of the Coen
Each character is introduced with titles - Jerry Jones as J.J. THE OWNER, brothers'film The Hudsucker
Barry Switzer as THE COACH, Deion Sanders as DEION, and Kevin Smith Proxy to pokeftll1 at the way in
as THE GIPPER (a reference to Notre Dame football folklore when the only which crude capitalistic relation­
thing that mattered was the game). The dialogue is overstated, while the ships dominate baseball and other
background score is the triumphant Muzac associated with sports highlight professional sports.

films. Likewise, the shots signify the spectacle, not the game - cheerlead­
ers, the electronic scoreboard, the owner, Deion the Star, and even the Nike
swoosh as a Fascist banner. Nike does not disguise the spectacle, but presents
it in the form of intentional parody.
Nike advertising is marked by a unity of opposites: tensions between
irreverence and inspiration, between humble, self-deprecating celebrity
superstars and everyperson athletes. But in the ads discussed above there is
no sense of a Nike community constructed on the screen; here the only Nike
community that Nike seeks to construct is a community of viewers who
identify with Nike because of the pleasure of its texts. Nike ads consistently
joke about its logo and its slogan, as if to say (metacommunicate), "our pri­
mary message is still that the capacity to change and develop as a person
must come from you. Hey we just sell good shoes with a hip attitude and a
sense of humor."
The ironic winking encourages reflexivity about the relationship
between advertising and Nike, a self-effacing company with a sense of humor
that doesn't take itself too seriously. Nike ads are willing to poke fun at Nike
and its participation in the spectacle. In this regard, a recurring feature of
Nike advertising is its willingness to construct cartoon-like caricatures of its
own advertising. Wieden & Kennedy revisited this technique in 1996 campaigns

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78 Nike C u lture

for both Penny Hardaway and Ken Griffey. When Wieden & Kennedy briefly
brought the two campaigns together in an ad that features Little Penny com­
menting on the tongue-in-cheek "Griffey for President" campaign, Nike once
again metacommunicated to its audience that it does not take itself too seri­
ously. The ad opens with a TV screen and an overlay image of Ken Griffey
against the red and white stripes of the flag. Snippets of the solemn rever­
ential announcer's voice frequently used in political campaign ads can be
heard, "Ken Griffey Jr, athlete . . . " The voice of Little Penny cuts in, "Hey,
Nick, Penny, this is a Griffey for President commercial. " Little Penny, Nick
Anderson, and Penny Hardaway are seated on a couch as the ventriloquist
dummy yaks it up about the "Griffey for President" campaign. Nick and
Penny appear indifferent to both the ad and Little Penny's commentary.
Nick fidgets uncomfortably on the couch as he tries to shield himself from
Little Penny's monologue with the Slam magazine he's holding. Penny looks
away in an obviously pained look of irritation by Little Penny's rant, "You
know there's more to life than sports. Man, there's politics. "
The a d cuts back t o the television set and a scene from the "Griffey for
President" commercial features the iconography of red and white stripes
overlaying a map of America with yet another overlay of Ken Griffey Jr.
swinging the bat. A campaign slogan on the screen reads "CARRY a 31 oz.
BAT" while the voice-over is thick with hero worship, " . . . is a fabulous
American hero." Little Penny interrupts again, "He's got some interestin'
ideas about that flat tax. Check it out." Back to the TV, Griffey is shown
standing alongside the Mariner Moose mascot as the reportorial voice con­
tinues, " . . . picked Mariner Moose as a running mate . . . " (the sound volume
trails off) " . . . in consideration of animal rights . . . " The camera cuts back to
Little Penny's face as his jaw drops open and eyes widen in a look of aston­
ished dismay. Little Penny: "Now that Moose could be a liability. Hey, hey, I
tell you what. I should be his running mate. I mean that's a good job. You
don't gotta do squat!" Finally, Nick Anderson has had enough. He gets up in
disgust, tossing down his magazine and walking away. But Little Penny
never stops: "Come on Nick. Power to the people! Stick it to the man! No
nukes! Save the whales!" The ad closes with Penny at one end of couch ges­
turing in embarrassment and disbelief at Little Penny spouting politically
correct slogans minus any sense of conviction. Across the scene, centered
between the two of them, appears the swoosh.
We are not suggesting this ad offers a serious critique of mainstream
politics, though it does offer elements of criticism in which politics has been
reduced to an empty signifier, figuratively encompassing nothing more than
hot air. The ad caricatures the spectacle of media politics in such an exag­
gerated way that viewers are unlikely to take the critique seriously. Though
the ad aims at skewering the hollowness of political sloganeering and cam­
paigning, it also reveals its own athletes as passively disinterested in public
issues. When the swoosh appears at the end, it does not attach itself to the

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Reflexivity a n d I rreve rence 79

athletes or to shoes, but to the overall attitude of cynical irreverence that

Nike has constructed. We are back to the knowing wink, which has been of
crucial importance in elevating the overall sign value of the swoosh.

THE ABSENCE OF THE COMMODITY

Nike has established its sign, its slogan, its style, and its attitude to the degree
that the shoe as either a material object or a commodity is absent. The fea­
tured item in Nike ads is the sign, the logo - the swoosh. The swoosh, which
began as an arbitrary drawing which possessed no intrinsic meaning what­
soever, has grown to the point that it now expresses a philosophy, and is
viewed as projecting a multidimensional personality.
The liberation Nike offers often appears as if it is available to all who
believe and act in the Nike spirit. In the late 1980s, when the "Just do it" slo­
gan was starting to hum along, a poster, modeled after a print ad, went up in
health clubs and many workplaces. It spoke to the experience and feeling
of the pure moment of freedom in a class-based society. "There are clubs
you can't belong to. Neighborhoods you can't live in. Schools you can't get
into," reads the text above a runner on a deserted country road. "But the
roads are always open. JUST DO IT."
Even as the inequalities of social class are acknowledged, both the eco­
nomic relations of work and the money aspects of consumption disappear
from view; like the hours spent working at someone else's discretion to make
enough money to buy some stylin' Nikes. Absent is the price tag for Nike's
"Just do it." To be sure, many Nike ads aim at something more than "just
buy our shoes." The injunction to run, to work out the body, is also an injunc­
tion against giving in to the unfairness of inequality.
Nike ads often hail viewers at a metacommunicative level about ques­
tions of authenticity and sincerity. The overt sell, the hard sell, compromises
each of these meanings. When the commodity itself is removed from view,
trust goes up. Nike offers viewers the appearance of something to believe
in, something that lies deeper than a commodity surface. This is why irrev­
erence and inspiration go together in Nike ads: the inspirational appeal works
best when it seems less motivated by crass commercialism, and the irreverent
Where's the swoosh?

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80 Nike C u lture

self-reflexivity diminishes culpability for participating in the parade of com­

modities.
In a 1994 Nike series of spots run in New York City the only clue indi­
cating that one was watching a Nike ad was the minimalist presence of their
logo somewhere in the physical environment. One ad surveyed an open
manhole with the "logo placed as graffiti on a barrier," while the logo
appeared in other ads on a chain link fence and on an anti-theft security
gate that denoted a "neighborhood bodega."7 Nike has so thoroughly estab­
lished its sign, the swoosh, with its audience, that viewers need only see the
swoosh in the background to recognize these as Nike commercials. In one
commercial entitled "Joe Regular," the foreground consists of the anony­
mous voice-over of a young "brother" describing the pleasure and the sat­
isfaction he gets from playing playground hoops. This is Nike's imagery of
unalienated and uncommodified activity where competition has only to do
with a personal sense of self-confidence and worth. In fact, these hardly
seem to be commercials. What are they selling? By shedding the usual for­
mulas of selling a commodity self, these ads offer an impression of Nike as
sharing and supporting the love of the game expressed in the authentic
voices of those who play.
Nike raises concerns about the "pollution" of sporting activity in the
wake of the commodity form. Nike has established itself as the pre-eminent
commodity sign because of the way it handles this contradiction between
the commodification of sport that has made Nike very wealthy, and the Nike
moral vision of sport as an anchor for moral individualism today. Routinely,
media-literate consumers are exposed to stories and headlines such as, "Hot
Athletes and Cold Cash; Image Matters as Much as Winning in the Celebrity
Endorsement Game."H It is hard to ignore this persistent theme in contem­
porary sports. Nike succeeds because compared to the advertising of its chief
rival, Reebok, Nike invariably comes out with a higher authenticity quotient.
John Boulter, Reebok's vice president for global marketing, inadvertently con­
firms that Reebok walks the more obvious commodity route: "We look for
top performance, but also good people with pleasant personalities who
appeal in all walks of life." It thus seems implausible that Reebok could suc­
cessfully contest Nike's goal-oriented slogan "Just do it" even when it mim­
ics Nike's appeal with a slogan such as "Pure Athletics Plus Humanity."
Most recently, the absence of the commodity has been visible in the
Nike P.L.A.Y. campaign. The P.L.A.Y. campaign leveraged Nike's powerful
symbolic presence built up by years of playful advertising to create ads that
do not refer to their shoe products. Jeff Jensen of Advertising Age observed
that:

. . . the P.L.A.Y. campaign tmderscores the ubiquity of Nike, a name that

has become virtually synonymous with the category it continues to dom­
inate. The position allows Nike to execute ads that entertain, preach and do

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Reflexivity a n d I rrevere nce 81

anything else but sell product. "Nike has reached such a comfortable and
powerful position that they don't have to use their advertising to define
their products, and that's a position an agency wants to be in. That's when
they do their best work," said Richard Silverstein, co-chairman and co­
creative director at Goodby, Berlin, and Silverstein, San Francisc0 9

Indeed, with the PL.AY. campaign, Wieden & Kennedy devoted them­
selves entirely to building up the broader symbolic associations of the Nike
swoosh: its sign value!

MEDIA-REFERENTIAL IRREVERENCE

While Wieden & Kennedy and Nike may specialize in "authenticity," their
work also epitomizes an emerging media-referential knowingness. On the
one hand, Nike's success with its sign, the swoosh, has been rooted in its abil­
ity to stake itself better than any other marketer to themes of authenticity.
And yet, Nike is even, as we shall see, willing to desecrate its own logo. This
has given its voice credibility, and makes it likable because nothing seems
sacred to Nike, not even its most precious commodity - the swoosh sign. This
might explain why Wieden & Kennedy would experiment with William
Burroughs in the style of the disembodied Max Headroom as a television­
based talking head in Nike ads for the Air Max shoe line - the same William
Burroughs whose biography included the anti-bourgeois novel, Naked Lunch,
heroin use, mental illness, and manslaughter. So much advertising offers a
saccharine and moralizing account of our social world that it makes sense to
offer a cynical option: express your alienation by wearing badges endorsed
by "cult figures" who signify an anti-authoritarian rebelliousness. To avoid
the imagery of prepackaged individuality that comes with most commodi­
ties, "rebel advertising" offers signifiers of alienation. This is the tendency
that Herbert Marcuse most feared about transforming culture into com­
modities in his 1964 classic One-Dimensional Man: the ability to incorporate,
and thereby silence, all forms of criticism.lO Leslie Savan observes that "the
rebellion we have known is usually ground to the fine powder of irony and
added . . . " back into our images of consumption.

Consumer culture has always suborned its critics; Lou Reed and Devo have
done commercials for Honda, as Laurie Anderson has for Reebok and Norman
Mailer has for the Trump Shuttle. But now the realization that nothlng threatens
the system has freed advertising to exploit even the most marginal elements of
society . . . Which explains why William Burroughs, everybody's favorite beat
poet/heroin addict/crazed gun freak, is on TV flacking product for a major Nike's high tech guru, William
corp. OK, the corporation is Nike, and that makes it sound . . . cooler. But then, Burroughs. "The purpose of tech­
that's what they pay people like Burroughs to encourage you to think. The nologtj is not to confuse the brain
author appears, of course, with "distance" - his face flashes on various TV but to serve the body. "

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82 Nike C u lture

monitors that bounce around in scenes of Nike athletes pumping up. From
somewhere within his trademark rumpled gray suit, gray fedora, and gaunt
gray face, Burroughs's gravel-gray bark of a voice is saying words that sound
like his own: "Hey, I'm talking to you," he starts right in. "The purpose of
technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body. To make life easier.
To make anything, anything possible . . . It's the opening of the door. It's the
coming of new technology. Holy Cow!" Burroughs croaks, as a baseball player
slides in to spike him on another monitor. "Serve the body. New and weird."1l

In Charles Barkley Nike found an intelligent "bad boy," a celebrity who

refused to play according to the constraints of dominant social ideologies.
Nike also has constructed Dennis Hopper and Dennis Rodman as Bad Boys
who refuse to play strictly by the rules. Each campaign focuses on a deviant
media character as a way of differentiating itself . Consider the Dennis
Hopper campaign in which Hopper plays a whacked-out former football
referee obsessed with the game and with a fetish for sniffing the shoes of
Hopper plays a crazed ref who professional football players. The Hopper character draws on his film per­
sniffs Bruce Smith's shoe.
sona (Blue Velvet, River's Edge, Easy Rider, Red Rock West), although Hopper 's
subsequent characterization of madness in the film Speed included a reference
to his Nike campaign role, sending the arrow of referential appropriation in
the opposite direction. Borrowing on Hopper's film characters also invites a
disruption of the usual "gaze" in advertising. In the Nike ads Hopper stares
directly at the camer a . Because his gaze is held inappropriately long, it
becomes the "insane gaze" based on the belief that the eyes convey our men­
tal state. In a Superbowl ad that mimicked Patton (the movie), Hopper 's eye­
balls shift back and forth almost as self-parody. The intertextual playfulness
of these ads, along with the comic moments of the intense gaze played to
maximum affect, drew viewers into these advertising texts, demanding that
they become active interpreters of the ads' meanings. The Dennis Hopper
ads were media-irreverent in how they positioned viewers on initial view­
ings to ask "what the hell is this?" W hen Nike ads feature Dennis Hopper
In Speed Hopper is a mad bomber
who watchesfootball games as he and William Burroughs, they engage viewers in a tongue-in-cheek form of
toys with a bus load of hostages. hero worship for a media-literate audience.
Return for a moment to Hopper taking such fetish pleasure in the shoe
- caressing it, smelling it. W hile ads encourage us to love commodities, they
rarely want to signify idealized consumers as obsessively neurotic in their
relationship to that object. The image of a wild-eyed Dennis Hopper getting
pleasure from smelling pro football stars' Nike shoes is, at the very least, an
ambivalent image open to many interpretations. Nike drew on Hopper to
signify what they termed "weird intensity" as the sign correlative of their
new football shoe. The manner chosen to signify this carried with it, per­
haps inadvertently, a stress on anti-value as a new source of sign value.
In fact, Nike appears to re-mark its own swoosh sign at the end of the
Hopper ads by making the background appear to be a rippling piece of raw
meat. Now whether the makers of this ad sought to signify raw meat we

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Reflexi v i ty a n d I rreve rence 83

do not know. What we do know is that the rippling looks that way to us,
and that this has the effect of distorting the shape and look of the swoosh.
The question we are asking is, does this have any impact on how viewers
might interpret this momentary distortion of the swoosh. We earlier spoke
of Nike's use of the swoosh to both punctuate and sign their work. Those who
work at Nike believe that Nike stands for excellent products attuned to the
needs of athletes. And yet, in their advertising, these new leaders in the
political economy of sign value seem to recognize that they must appear to The swoosh appears i n many
forms. Here, Nike profanes its
profane their own sign value if they are to reproduce and maintain the value
own sign. Multiple uses of the
of that sign.
swoosh allow consumers to
The postmodern twist to advertising sports blurs the boundaries choose the swoosh that best repre­
between advertising and entertainment. Nike's brand of media-referential sents their identities.
irreverence usually blends a "sliver of pop culture" with athletics and "puts
in the Nike swoosh to make it hip."12 This is most often accomplished by set­
ting up tongue-in-cheek encounters between athletes and the iconography of
pop culture (Godzilla, Bugs Bunny, Santa Claus, TV talk shows, and Vegas
reviews). Another dimension of the ads featuring Hopper, Spike and Mike,
Bo, Barkley, and Rodman is that they are written to be comic. Some are elab­
orate one-liners. Others wryly play on the personality of the star in ques­
tion. The crazed ref character is meant to be no more than a humorous
depiction of the "fanatical and passionate fan's love of the game" said a Nike
spokesperson. But, push too far and someone is bound to find it morally
offensive. Hopper's portrayal as the sleepless and obsessive football fanatic
offended advocates of the mentally ill.
The sight of Dennis Rodman, the pierced and tattooed basketball tough­
guy, bullying Santa Claus played even more poorly with the public, offend­
ing both the black bourgeoisie and the suburban middle class.13 Such are
the perils involved with mixing concoctions of athletics and pop culture that
try too hard to be irreverent. Trying too hard to be hip is decidedly unhip
in this culture. Those who are caught trying to be hip are labeled poseurs.
Both the Rodman Santa Claus ad (not a Wieden & Kennedy ad) and the
William Burroughs ad (which was a Wieden & Kennedy ad) presented overly­
contrived efforts to be clever and hip. Such failures reveal the aesthetic and
economic grain of Wieden & Kennedy's success with the Nike advertising
account. The agency provides broad space for its creative people to fail.
Unlike most contemporary advertising agencies, Wieden & Kennedy does not
over-rationalize their ads. Most Nike ads are not based on survey research, or
pretest audience analyses, or focus groups. Amazingly, the Wieden & Kennedy
writers we spoke to all indicated that they do not try to write for a specific
audience. One writer responded to our question by asking, "How would I
know what a 14-year-old kid is thinking?" Wieden & Kennedy is an agency
steeped in a distaste for the stale advertising conventions that dominated
American advertising from the 1960s through the 1990s. While you can never
try too hard at sports and athletics in the world of Nike, trying too hard in the

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advertising industry is, Dan Wieden believes, the kiss of death. In the world
of advertising today, if a sponsor appears to chase after authenticity then it
will likely be perceived as inauthentic.

THE POLITICS O F IRREVERENCE

A few years ago Nike ran the famous Charles Barkley ad in which he issued
a cautionary edict about expecting professional athletes to function effec­
tively as role models. In his frank, curmudgeonly way, Barkley pointedly
directs his thoughts at the camera. Though he is paid as a basketball merce­
nary "to wreak havoc" on the court and dunk with authority, dunking and
parenting have nothing to do with one another.

I am not a role model

I am not paid to be a role model.
I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court.
Parents should be role models.
Just because I can dunk a basketball
doesn't mean I should raise your kids.

In challenging the idea that professional athletes have a public obliga­

tion to perform as role models for children, Nike touched too close to a core
myth of media hegemony and controversy ensued. The newspaper and TV
media were quick to take umbrage in their self-appointed role as defenders
of the public moral well-being. This excerpt from the San Francisco Chronicle
is illustrative of the moralizing that followed .

. . . One day recently, Nate Ford, a 24-year-old athletic director at the San
Francisco Boys and Girls Club, encouraged one of his teenage basketball
players to be more of a leader, especially with the younger children .
. . . The boy wanted no part of it.
. . . "1 don't need to be a role model," he said. "Charles Barkley said parents
are role models. I don't have to be a role model until I have kids."
. . . Barkley had made the statement on a Nike commercial.
. . . Athletic footwear ads, particularly those from Nike, have become so
popular and so sophisticated that their debuts on Super Bowl Sunday are
sometimes the highlight of the telecast. Kids, especially, pay attention to the
spots because the country's hippest sports heroes play the starring roles.14

Recounting the reception of Barkley'S ad in the theater of the main­

stream media hardly exhausts the possible political interpretations of the
ad, though it does point to the most visible ideological response. Houston
Baker imagines a very different response from what he conceptualizes as a
black minority "counterpublic."

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Reflexivity a n d I rrevere nce 85

Even when Charles Barkley says " I' m not a role mode!," black publicity
responds with: "You are intended as a role model of media / consumer
culture, Sir Charles. You are meant to convince us that you are not role­
modeling, so that we, who have thoroughly discredited the notion of role
models, will buy the products that you, Sir Charles, are being paid to hus­
tle." The commercial may be regarded as dope on the street, but nobody
black is buying the product simply because of Sir Charles' slickness in
relationship to role-modeling. This shortlived commercial is simply one
result. The actual wish for real forms of power can be thought of as a
desire for counterauthori ty. Reading through the commercial is a form of
rational and emotional resistance by marginal groups. I '

While w e have sociological doubts about just how widely shared this
popular critique of advertising "dope" might be, neither are we particularly
persuaded that Nike abused the public trust of sports spectatorship. But it
is unimportant whether or not we find these reactions to Barkley's engage­
ment of a "moral question" particularly persuasive. What is significant is
that Nike placed a "morality" issue in the foreground rather than keeping
it tacit in the background. Once the ad hit the videowaves, it elicited inter­
pretations arranged around the politics of societal morality. Though ques­
tions concerning societal morality are routinely raised by politicians, religious
leaders, the news media, and even talk shows designed to get ratings by
offending moral sensibilities, such big serious questions are infrequently the
subject of consumer-brand advertising
The ad's creators relished the letters of protest that it generated,
delighted that they had stirred people to thought. It is easy to exaggerate
this point, but in a sense Nike acted as a provocateur in sparking a public
forum of debate. Of course, Nike is not the only such advertising provoca­
teur. Benetton and Calvin Klein have been notable for their provocations, as
they attempt to violate bourgeOiS taboos, with Calvin Klein focused on the
erotic and Benetton on the moral/political. It is interesting that each of these
lifestyle industry companies has pursued a path of moral and ideological
provocation in pursuit of expanding their market shares and profits.
The "I am not a role model" ad illustrates a looming tension in the mat­
uration of a consumer society. In the past, advertisers seldom strayed from
the straight and narrow of middle class morality, wary of the price paid for
too much negative publicity. Today, to get and hold the interest of their audi­
ences, advertisers like those mentioned above feel compelled to transgress
middle class moral shibboleths, while also acknowledging as self-consciously
as possible the nature of the advertising agenda in which they are engaged.
In this light, what if we read the Barkley ad as a Nike acknowledgment that
its own advertising has unleashed a monster of hero worship? In a rare tele­
vision advertising moment, it directly confronts a question that is otherwise
repressed from advertising discourse because it is a Pandora's box. Nike did
not apologize for its own role in the commodification process that shaped the

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86 Nike C u ltu re

problem to begin with, but instead pointed at parents for not taking respon­
sibility for their children's values. Of course, an argument can also be made
that Nike neatly skirted accepting responsibility for the ways in which it,
like other prominent corporate advertisers, has the power to shape the frame­
works that define how the public conceptualizes the relationship of hero
worship to personal identity. Yet, if the masses are as savvy and distrustful as
Baker's critique suggests, able to see through advertising's efforts at self­
consciously using moral issues as a device to advance the amoral goals of
commerce, then public cynicism will reign.

IN YOUR FACE CYNICISM

Most accounts of Phil Knight's leadership of Nike stress the delight he has
taken in the "maverick" ways of Nike culture. Wieden & Kennedy gave voice
to a public image of that "maverick" quality that Knight wanted to project. In
Wieden & Kennedy's hands, "maverick" became "irreverence," a willingness
to share ironic knowing winks. Theirs was an advertising sensibility that
resonated with savvy, media-literate viewers. The Reagan era was a time
during which audiences grew more and more distrustful of television, and
for good reason because people had now experienced the use of television as
a tool of the pure sell. And of course, Reagan's victories, achieved by way of
media excess, epitomized the use of the alienated form of the television spec­
tacle. Wieden & Kennedy found a way to talk to their audiences that acknowl­
edged the false side of television commercialism. In this way, Wieden &
Kennedy could say to the viewer in a metacommunicative way, "we share
your distaste for advertising done the usual way; so as long as we have to do
it, we'll do it in a way that doesn't insult you and you can have some fun
with."
The Nike TV ad that best epitomizes the Nike geme of irreverent cyni­
cism about sport as a spectacle teamed Bo Jackson with Denis Leary. After Bo
Jackson suffered a career-threatening hip injury most observers speculated
that Nike would abandon him as one of its celebrity athletes. Instead, Nike
drew attention to Bo's injury and how diligent he was about rehabilitating his
hip. The key to this ad was how Nike used Denis Leary to aggressively chal­
lenge the viewer's position as a spectator. Denis Leary has been described as
-
"the fidgety, Marlboro smoking, profanity-spewing, red-meat-eating, angry
Everyman of the Apocalypse."16 Leary opens the ad by aggressively snarling
and barking at the viewer through a chain link fence.

Hey! No more questions about Bo's hip.

OK?
No more questions about football, baseball or advertising.
Shaddup!! You thought it was over. Wrong!

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Reflex ivity a n d I rreve re nce 87

It ain't over till the hip socket sinks. OK?

So Bo's got a bum hip. So what? Look what he's doin' with it. He's hittin' the bike,
he's hittin' the weights. He's wearin' the shoes. As a matter offact, he's in
the pool wearin' the shoes, ridin' the bike with a hundred and twenty pounds
of weights strapped to his neck.
OK?
And what are you and your good hip doing right now?
WATCHING COMMERCIALS!
I think you hear me knocking. And I think I'm coming in.
And I'm bringing Bo and his big bad hip with me.

Matching Leary's rapid-fire delivery is a swiftly moving sequence of

quick cuts of Bo-related images that look to be taken from one TV ad or
another. Obviously distorted scan lines traced across these images call atten­
tion to the media construction of Bo's TV character: TV images of Bo playing
football, baseball, hawking shoes, pumping iron, and working out. Once
again, the passivity of television advertising emerges as a central focus. In
one critical scene that corresponds to "No more questions about . . . adver­
tising," Bo stands posed as a product shill, holding up the shoe with the cap­
tion on the screen beside him . Here, Nike mocks television advertising and
their own role in such advertising with a self-mocking cartoon that remark­
ably encapsulates what we call the "commodity sign." The image of Bo pre­
senting the shoe is flanked on one side by the words "Bo knows" and on the
other side by "Nike is neat" to emphasize that most shoe advertising is about
joining the meaning of a celebrity sign with the endorsement of the brand.
In the world of television advertising circa 1993, this was an unexpected
diatribe that put viewers on their heels. Most of the time advertisers hail us
by flattering us. Not here. Leary derisively hails the viewer as a passive
derelict: "And what are you and your good hip doin' right now? WATCH­
ING COMMERCIALS ! ! ! ! ! " When Leary berates the viewer for "watching
commercials! " he is attacking couch potatoes who are willing to dumbly
watch flashy, but empty, entertainment ads like Nike's own Superbowl extrav­
aganza featuring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny in Outer Space. But the
biggest jolt comes at the end when, glaring at us, Leary sharply raps his
knuckles against the glass screen that invisibly separates us. The sharp
knocks punctuate and focus Leary's diatribe, an aggressive and threatening A s 8 0 Jackson looks o n , Leary
attitude that intends to intrude into our ordinarily protected, private abuses the audience. Which do you
voyeuristic space. The last part of the ad is a caustic assault on the couch prefer? Cynical comicform of
address orformulaic flatten)?
potato who consumes commercials. In this way, Nike gets across a message
consistent with its long running tagline and sign: "Just do it." The negative
form of address actually provides Nike with another method of reinforcing
the overall meaning of its overarching commodity sign - the swoosh sign.
But a stark contrast is constructed here between the cartoon of shameless
hucksterism and the "reality" of Bo's unremitting workout regimen.

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88 Nike C u l ture

IRREVERENCE FEEDING CYNICISM

Judged by viewer enthusiasm, Nike's more effective ads are also marked by
a different tone of irreverence - a tone of playfulness. Viewers remark that
this playfulness registers in how Nike presents its athletes. We have found
that viewers still remember the playful, almost quirky, quality of the "Bo
knows" ads, full of admittedly bad puns, and unexpected turns, such as
pairing Bo Jackson with Bo Diddley and Sonny Bono. Nike's playfulness is
most evident in ads structured as media-referential jokes.
One senses an air of mischief along one axis of Nike advertising. Yet
this playful irreverence on Nike's part also hails a strain of cynicism in our
culture today. Yeah, its ads tend to be irreverent, but they also call forth our
most cynical and rebellious sentiments. In late 1995, Nike introduced its "Ken
Griffey Jr for President" ad campaign, based on the far-fetched premise of
baseball superstar Ken Griffey Jr as a presidential candidate. This campaign
combined elements of playfulness, media-referentiality, and cynicism. One ad
featured James Carville, political campaign strategist for Bill Clinton in 1992,
Griffey to run for President
intermixed with funk musician George Clinton, Phil Knight, and the rap
artist Ice-T. Another of the Nike commercials had Carville analyzing how he
might "spin" Griffey'S home run trot for public relations purposes. Carville
walks us through alternative political interpretations of Griffey's baseball
trot, winking at the viewer all the way.
Why would Nike introduce a political campaign strategist into their
advertising? We might also ask what is being advertised? Our answer is
that the object being advertised is Nike as an abstract entity, or more pre­
cisely, the swoosh sign along with the slogan "Just do it." Perhaps this is why
Nike would risk building an ad around the figure of James Carville: because
the ad sells an attitude; a sensibility that doesn't take too seriously the times
in which we live. The dialogue cleverly plays on double meanings that join
together the subjects of politics and sports. The ad opens with Carville iden­
tified on screen as a "political strategist," observing that Griffey is the perfect
candidate for the times, "people don't want someone coming out of left
field. And they sure don't want someone who plays too far right. Griffey's in
the center [field], perfectly positioned." Then it's George Clinton, identified
on screen as "campaign manager," who applies the baseball metaphor to
civic life: "In this country it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, we're behind.
We need Junior. We need a hit." The ad continues with Carville and Clinton
drawing parallels between athletics and politics. Says Carville, "If you can hit
an Orel Hershheiser slider, you can hit [pause] welfare reform."
This Nike ad fashions a parody of the politics of soundbites, a com­
mentary on the soundbites of politics. They playfully tweak the media codes
and formulas of political advertising. Like so many other Nike ads, this one
also has a penchant for including moments of self-reflexivity. Following the
campaign promotions of Carville and Clinton, the camera cuts to Ice-T, the

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high-profile rap artist, identified on screen as a "Concerned citizen," who

declares: "Man that Ken Griffey for President thing is a straight-up sell-out.
Nothin' but a big marketing scheme." This is immediately followed by a
scene of Phil Knight wearing dark sunglasses, and banging a Nike shoe on
the table as he speaks. "This is not, I repeat NOT, a marketing scheme." In the
midst of banging the shoe on the table he catches himself and carefully
straightens the shoe so it can be seen as if on display. Though this scene
lacks the subtlety and grace of Nike's usual self-reflexive asides, it none the
less points to the intentionality of Nike's "knowing wink." While having
Knight bang his shoe on the table in mock anger a Ia Nikita Khrushchev sets
up a playful moment of intertextuality, the ensuing sequence of him self­
consciously straightening out the shoe draws viewer awareness to Nike's
presence as a global sports marketer. Knight's denial of the "Griffey for
President" campaign as a Nike marketing scam is set up by the pseudo-cri­
tique voiced by Ice-T. We might call this reflexivity-lite or sugar-coated reflex­
ivity because it consists of a moment of reflexivity that does not yield a
deeper critique, but is there solely for the purpose of poking fun at Nike.
So how does this kind of irreverent chuckle translate into a culture of
cynicism? In the field of cultural studies a distinction is made between encod­
ing and decoding. In this case the advertiser is doing the encoding and view­
ers may, or may not, be doing the decoding. Given the mass audience of the
ad, there probably are multiple decodings or interpretations available in
these ads. We are not suggesting that Nike intends to make its audience cyn­
ics. Rather, we believe the background understandings necessary to setting
up this elaborate joke involve heavy doses of political irony, or as Leslie
Savan put it, "irony ground into a fine powder and added to our feed." For
example, the viewer who recognizes that Carville is President Clinton's cam­
paign director will not likely miss the fact that Carville's voice drips with
irony and cynicism in the final lines of the ad. After an interviewer asks
from off camera, "Don't you have to be 35 to be President?" Carville grins
and drawls in reply, "Well that's what the Constitution says. [ironic pause] I
mean if you're gone pay attention to that kind of stuff." The ad simply offers
a quick laugh, one premised on a broad sense of politicians as slick weasels
and politics as the art of spectacle and opportunism. The ad is further
premised on the display of acting on the part of Ice-T and Phil Knight. The
viewer is invited to see through their performances, to recognize that these
are make-believe moments of reflexivity. Viewers can both laugh at these
scenes, while also recognizing just how cynically motivated they appear.
Ice-T has been commissioned to offer a hollow critical protest of the make­
believe Nike marketing and political sell-out while Knight's overly-zealous
shoe-pounding defense of Nike is equally vacuous. Everything is for show.
This series of ads, which came to an end because Junior Griffey
detested being associated with politics, even as a joke, is an excellent exam­
ple of Nike's penchant for having "fun" with the excesses and absurdities of

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contemporary popular culture. They not only needle the politics of image­
making, they also needle the media commentators who love to apply sports
metaphors to politics. Why dwell on the subject of spin control, the practice
professional politicians use to pitch issues for media consumption and pub­
lic interpretation to their own advantage? Certainly, when Carville talks
about the political art of spin control as it might be applied to Griffey's homer­
run trot, he draws attention to the practice of spin c ontrol as much as to
Griffey's hitting ability. In this way, Nike constructs the impression of a pop­
ulist rhetoric that aligns them with viewers, and against the powers that be.

YOU SUCK!

In Chapter 2, we discussed the process of appellation in advertising: the

practice of hailing and engaging viewers in terms of identity and belief.
Typically, the hailing process is located at the opening of an ad, as in Nike's
William Burroughs ad where his disembodied television-head barks, "Hey,
I'm talking to you." But in recent years advertisers have sometimes shifted
the weight of the hailing process to the closing moments of the ad, in part, as
a measure intended to hold onto the fragile attention span of viewers who
are prone to using their remote control devices to jump around from channel
to channel when they spot an ad formula coming their way. Gone too is the
guarantee of a cordial tone and a superficially flattering image. In Nike's
1997 youth-oriented "Virtual Andre" ad, the setting is an upscale depart­
ment store where a self-absorbed teen demands the "coolest virtual game
you've got." The game turns out to be virtual tennis played against Virtual
Andre Agassi. Virtual Andre's game overpowers the teen, sending the kid
careening wildly about the store, shattering objects right and left while
swinging vainly to return Agassi's shots. At ad's end the Nike logo fills the
screen and the virtual Andre voice-over is heard signing off, "Nice game.
You suck." In the twinkle of an eye, the attentive viewer will have noticed
that Virtual Andre's reflection appeared on the silvery "virtual" surface of the
swoosh.
At first glance this seems to defy the rationale of advertising. Why
would an advertiser whose goal is the sale of a sponsor's product risk clos­
ing the ad with the declaration, "You suck"? In the context of addressing
those who see themselves as oriented towards alternative youth culture,
one of creators of the "Virtual Andre" ad stated, 'Tm not going far enough if
I haven't offended somebody." Indeed, it might be that instead of flattering
the viewer with the lure of an identity or a look located in having the prod­
uct, that this represents a new form of flattery. Savvy, knowing viewers have
learned to see through the superficiality of slick style and empty flattery. In
fact, the new generation of flattery hails viewers for their knowledge of the
codes of w inking irreverence; namely, "You suck." It inverts the codes of

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Reflexivity a n d I rreve rence 91

civility. It is rude. It is cocky and arrogant and lll1sportsmanlike. "You suck"

also metacommunicates a shared awareness of the conventions that gov­
ern polite (though manipulative and deceitful) ways of hailing consumers.
"You suck" hails the oversaturated, resistant viewer, who is unwilling to
participate in the conventional hailing process.
The producers of the Nike ads routinely use the term "irreverence" to
describe their intent. They prefer an attitude of "irreverence" because they
don't care for - and they believe their audiences don't care for - advertising
that takes itself too seriously. But they also speak in the voice of "irrever­
ence" because they understand that this is an era when treating anything
as sacred may be seen as sappy and undesirable. Because the concept of
"irreverence" has its origins in the struggle against the authoritarian dic­
tates of formal religions, its meaning is linked to terms such as "impiety,"
"sacrilege," "heresy" and "profanity." Today the struggle is no longer against
the restrictive codes of Judeo-Christian institutions, but against the dominion
and ascendancy of consumerism.
Nike recognizes that the value of its imagery goes up to the extent that
it is willing to treat its own logo in a "playful" and "irreverent" way. Hence
we get Virtual Andre and "You suck" or even more to the point, the playful
profanation of the swoosh on a field of raw red meat in the Dennis Hopper
ads discussed above. What intrigues us here is that in order to preserve its
investment in the swoosh, Nike is willing to periodically "profane" it. This
willingness to engage in self-desecration establishes Nike as one of the 1990s
leaders in the economy of signs. Just as importantly, the willingness to
engage in playful irreverence regarding its own sacred symbol, the swoosh,
functions to preserve Nike's legitimacy by deflating the image of Nike as a
giant corporation that might have lost its human touch.
Some see this age of cynicism as a long-term historical product of cul­
tural relativism. That is, if all values are socially constructed and culturally
fluctuating, then why would people really commit themselves to any set of
values? Another argument views cynicism as a reaction against the perva­
siveness of public relations discourse in both the corporate and govern­
mental worlds. After decades of disinformation and spin control, people
have become suspicious of the motives behind almost any claim. A third
argument holds that the push toward universal commodification has made
people wary of how their own value commitments have been appropriated
and used against themselves. As economy and culture have wound their
way together, the apparatus of a digital culture accelerates the diminishing
half-life of cultural images, with a collapse of meaning following in its wake.
Rapid transitions from one set of images and values to another confirm the
relativist absence of deep commitment to any set of values, and prompts a
pervasive suspicion that any value will be put to use as a sales tool. Ironically
compolll1ding this rush to cynicism, the antidote to this, media-literacy (and
its intellectual cOlll1terpart, deconstruction), contributes to a yet-more refined,

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detached and apolitical cynicism, since most people are so far removed from
the levers of institutional power that all they can do is debunk.
Advertising cynicism is a form of address based on the cultural capital
of media experience. As a form of address it flatters the viewer that "you
have an attitude" and are "able to recognize irony" and thus able to engage
in cynical distance. Irreverent cynicism now amounts to a defensive pos­
ture that may be worn much as a blinking sign that announces to others
that the wearer is not gullible - in a maturing media society it amounts to a
reworking of the old urban saying, "What do you think, I just got off the
turnip truck?" Similarly, the attitude of irreverence offers the reassurance
of prophylactic protection against the intrusions of other people's morality
into our homes and our consciousness. Postures of cynical distance offer a
way of seeming to escape a society saturated in public relations discourses;
a way of talking back to the banality of canned political discourse; a way of
acting out against the practices of emotional labor that require people to sell
their personalities. Speaking with cynical distance creates a buffered position
in a world where all positions can be suspect, where no posture can be
trusted, and no one really "believes" in anything anymore. It is a punk voice
softened for TV audiences. Long gone are the days when political legiti­
macy was calculated in terms of ideological compliance; gone are the days
when ideological criticism was threatening because today's "cynical subject
is quite aware that ideology is a lie meant to conceal a very different real­
ity; he or she does not believe the "official" view. But, feeling superior to
the lie, the cynical subject continues to live by it." I? While cynicism offers a
voice without emotion to express the ironic, the pop mix of media irreverence
offers a momentarily more satisfying pleasure of "thumbing one's nose" at
some vague, but distant, powers that be.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 . Donald Katz, fllst Do it: tl,C Nikc Spirit ill till' Corpo/'(]te World (Random House, New
York, 1994), p. 1 37.
2. Randall Rothenberg, WI,ere tl,,' S lickers MOOll: all Aduertisillg S tory (Knopf, New York,
1994).
3. Miguel Korzeniewicz, "Commodity chains and marketing strategies: Nike and the
global athletic footwear industry," in Gary Gereffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz (eds),
COl/lIlloditlj Cill7illS alld Global Capitalislll (Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 1 994),
p. 258.
4. Donald Katz, f llst Do It, p . 1 45.
5. The 1995 ran kings published by the Sports Marketillg Leiter were based on "money
earned, di versity of corporate relationships and a subjective evaluation of demand"
(The Oregollia", July 29 1 995, p. 01 1 ).
6. In fact, it was this scene in the film that inspired Jim Riswold and Bill Davenport of
Wiedcll & Kelllledy to pair Mars with Jordan. Katz, fllst Do It, p. 1 47; Spike Lee and
Ralph Wiley, Best Sent ill Ihe House - A Basketball MCI/wir (Crown Publishers, New York,
1997), p. 1 35.

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Reflexivity a n d I rreve re nce 93

7 . Kevin Goldman, " N i ke, H - P gamble o n news sales pitches," Wall Street Journal, April
8 1994.
8. William Drozdiak, " H ot athletes and cold cash; image matters as much as winning
in the celebrity endorsement game," The Washingtoll Post, February 2 1994.
9. jeff jensen, " N i ke comes out to PLAY; public-spirited spots accent shift away from
selling," Advcrtisillg Age, March 28 1994, p. 3.
10. Herbert Marcuse, Ol1c-DilitCIlSiollal Mall ( Beacon, Boston MA, 1964).
1 1 . Leslie Savan "Naked lunch: ads from the underground," Thc Village Voicc, September
6 1994, 50 OP AD.
1 2. Donny Deutsch cited in jensen, "Nike comes out to PLAY, " p. 3.
13. General Manager Wayne Embry of the Cleveland Cavaliers reacted vigorously to the
commercial. "What kind of message is that?" Embry rhetorically fumed to the Akron
Bmcon JOllmal. "That it doesn't matter what you do? That the rules don't apply7 That
you don't need discipline7 Everything is fine if you get enough rebounds? I was
offended by this, both as a basketball man and an African-American" (Thomas
Boswell, "Selling kids a bill of goods," Tlte Washingtoll Post, December 7 1994, p. B 1 ) .
1 4. joan Ryan, " An odd message in Nike's Santa ad," The Sal1 Frallcisco Cimmiclc, December
1 5 1 994, p. A I .
1 5. Houston Baker, "Critical memory and the black public sphere," in Black Public Sphere
Collective (ed.), Tlte Black Public Spital' (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995),
p. 1 5 .
1 6 . Peter Howell, "We've got two words for you: Denis Leary blows smoke rings at pop
culture," The Torollto Star, March 4 1 993, p. G3.
1 7. Joe Sartelle, "Cynicism and the election," Bad Subjects, Issue no. 2, October 1 992,
http: / /eserver.org/bs/02/sartelle.html.

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5.
ALIENATION, HOPE
AND TRANSCENDENCE:
DETERMINISM OR
DETERMINATION?

This chapter looks at how Nike translates the relationships of race and class
into visual pop culture. Since most advertising represses questions regarding
class and race divisions, that Nike deals with these relationships at all is in
itself unusual in the world of American pop culture. Nike assembles generic
images of alienation to serve as a semiotic backdrop for Nike's idealism mixed
with determination. While some Nike ads recognize, and acknowledge, that
a world of inequality and alienation exists "out there," its images never reveal
- or name - the social, economic, and political forces underlying this alien­
ation. By calling attention to a ghostly aura of class and race injustice, Nike
both establishes itself as a "realist" voice while at the same time representing
sport as a vehicle for spiritually transcending race and class divides. Nike
simultaneously acknowledges and denies the unequal social and economic
realities that influence probabilities for both success and suffering. In so
doing, Nike retells a mythology of sport that has grown dear to our society.

POVERTY, HOPE AND TRANSCENDENCE

Around 1992, a series of Nike ads drew attention to the social underside of
contemporary life and the condition of youth living in poverty. These ads
j oined distinctive music with a heavily realist visual tone. Like the photo­
graphic tone in the Nike P.L.A.Y. campaign, this photography dwelt on the
demoralization of youth in poverty. By drawing on the conventions of docu­
mentary and art photography these ads focused attention on the idea of
their "realness."
A 1993 Nike ad constructs a correspondence between a soulful, tradi­
tional miners' lament, "Hardrock Miner," with scenes panning slowly across
a landscape of ghetto hoops. The ad's narrative is ambiguous, in part,
because the ad draws even more on codes than content. "Hardrock Miner"

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A l i e n a t i o n , H o pe & Tra n scendence: Determ i n i s m or Dete r m i n a ti o n 95

seems t o speak from the position o f the oppressed about the drudgery of
wage work that never ends. By combining video techniques of slow motion
with fade-ins and fade-outs, the ad simulates the texture of a journalistic
photo essay so that each image can be imagined as a portrait of a day-in­
the-life in the ghetto. The camera pulls against the flow of movement on
screen, thus seeming to retard the progress of black male figures which
trudge past. Scenes in TV ads rarely linger on the screen, but here they pass
deliberately to record a poetics of daily life. Mixing the emotional color of the
singer 's voice with the flat, affectless black and white of the video suggests a
feeling of painfully slow, and futile movement towards a goal.

We are miners, hardrock miners

to the shafthouse we must go.
With our bottles on our shoulders
we are marching to the slope.
O'er the land boys, o'er the land boys
Catch the cage and drill your holes.
Till the shift boss comes to tell you
Put it all on the line for this mining
for gold.
Put it all on the linefor this mining
for gold.

While the scenes convey a sense of exhaustion and fatigue, the music
evokes a tone of persistence. Born of working class pain and despair, this
song conveys sadness and hope, simple eloquence and sincerity. As hopeless
and barren as each moment seems, the music summons up resilience and
possibility. Though melancholy, the ad connotes a solemn and unbending
quality - every day may be like the day before, but these guys keep working
at their game.
In the context of a bleak and desolate ghetto wasteland, the music
strikes a transcendent chord. The miners' song has been modified by a gospel
style; coupled with the visual setting it is easy to conjure up an image of a
slave spiritual. The soulful lament framing slow-motion video conveys an
ethereal quality as well. The text connotes a legacy of spiritual resistance,
an unwillingness to allow the yoke of oppression to completely dehumanize
them. Yet, the alienation represented here is strangely de-materialized -
almost Hegelian - in our heads.
The hardrock miners' lot grew desperate as the gold industry expanded
and became more corporate in the late nineteenth century; hardrock min­
ers were "wage slaves," selling their labor for the dream of gold. Still, the
miner's dream of striking it rich kept him going. But why use the miner
analogy with ghetto basketball? Theirs is not wage work, though we might
easily infer this to be the daily labor of black male youth - working to

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develop their skills to play professional ball, knowing full well the odds
against their success. Still they persist. The ghetto kid's dream of making it
big as a basketball player is the modern equivalent of mining for gold.
Whether intentional or not, one subtext of this ad is that the photog­
raphy of black inner city basketball players has been mined for Nike's bene­
fit. What is the relationship of the mine and the ghetto? The lyrics speak of
entrapment. They are both prisons, the one a work-prison, the latter a labor­
market prison. But why would Nike risk the rhetoric of class relations to
position black youth? Though athletic shoe advertisers often present bas­
ketball as a form of transcendence, this ad permits Nike to differentiate itself
by politicizing the cliched construction of the relationship between the black
ghetto and basketball.
Athletic shoe ads usually address moments of personal transcendence,
hailing viewers with the inference that these moments might also be theirs.
However, this ad's lyrics do not hail viewers as individual consumers, but
as members of a political community. Strictly speaking, this ad is a luxury
few firms could afford. It does not speak about any act of consumption, but
rather about relationships of race, class, sport, and hope. When, at ad's end,
the familiar black logo appears, it is without the "Just do it" slogan.
Punctuating this video about race and ghetto life with the "just do it" slogan
as a moral commandment might make it seem glib and invite a variety of
negative interpretations. Furthermore, by 1993, there was no need to state
the slogan aloud, because the swoosh implied it.
Perhaps the authenticity of this ad has nothing to do with any rela­
tionship between the ghetto blacktop and the ordeal of exploitation, but
with the video codes Nike uses. After all, the correspondence between the
music and the visual frame takes place at the aesthetic level. Nike has joined
the codes of art photography (as opposed to the codes of commercial pho­
tography) with a piece of music that carries no prior commercial connota­
tions whatsoever. In this sense, Nike transforms both the meanings of
alienation and authenticity into an aesthetic sensibility. A crucial separation
takes place here between the referent system of everyday existence in an
urban ghetto and the referent system of the advertisement itself as a cul­
tural text. Our interpretation of this is that the meaning of authenticity resides
in the relationship between the ad and the viewer, built on top of the Wieden
& Kennedy aesthetic of alienation that seems grounded in the everydayness
of ghetto life.
Viewers might interpret this ad's photographic look and style as a state­
ment about Nike's commitment to authenticity. At the same time, the soulful
song to narrate images of young black men trudging through the heavy
gravity of the ghetto basketball court, might be heard as romanticizing spir­
itual resistance. At end of the ad, the Nike swoosh is joined to whatever mean­
ings and emotions are evoked by watching the commercial: to us it conjures
up meanings of authenticity and the majesty of the human spirit.

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Nike's first Spanish-speaking a d was aired during the 1993 Baseball

All-Star Game. Titled "La Tierra de Mediocampistas" (The Land of Shortstops),
and shot in the grainy codes of realist color, it too touched on the transcen­
dence of the human spirit made possible by sport and play in a world of
poverty. The story, told in Spanish with English subtitles, is about a poor
people who take pride in the excellence of their shortstops.

70 shortstops in organized baseball are from the Dominican Republic.

So when you see a great Dominican shortstop
go for the ball, and you hear,
[Radio announcer voicej "boy, he had to go far in the hole to get that one . . . /I

you 'll know, how far, is far.

Just do it.

The narrator's pacing and delivery of the words "you'll know, how far,
is far" guides viewers to consider the accomplishment of playing big league
baseball for boys who come from the grinding poverty of a semi-rural vil­
lage in the Dominican Republic. The photography offers a glimpse of the tex­
ture of daily life, framed by lively Latin American music. Among the images
included as signifiers of this third world place are scenes of: (1) a road where
motorbikes mix with burros carrying goods; (2) a squatting peasant tending a
cooking pot while a rooster wanders past; (3) boys playing on a crude sandlot
surrounded by a junkyard of buses and vans; (4) a woman hitting a ball with
(5) a background row of shanty-like shacks;
a long stick substituted for a bat;
and (6) a barefoot and shirtless boy catching and throwing a baseball.
Intermixed with these scenes are those of boys playing baseball in rag-tag
surroundings. And of course, the young boy playing shortstop is shown mak­
ing a remarkable stop of a bad bounce on the rocky infield, and throwing out
the runner. The last scene prior to the Nike swoosh is a closeup of his big grin.
Just as Nike ads do not attempt to conceal completely the alienated side
of spectatorship, neither do they entirely deny the alienated side of the
"Other" (blacks and Hispanics) who frequently give meaning to styles which
eventually "trickle up" to be consumed by the middle class, but who are
rarely allowed their own voice. Though these Nike ads invite viewers to notice
their realism, in the end the material disadvantages of race and class seem
to be no match for the cinematic moments of transcendence and inspiration.

THE IIWORK" ETHIC: CULTURAL CAPITAL

MADE THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

In 1995, Nike presented several first-person narratives of black athletes. The

most frequently played commercial entitled "Work" is narrated by Penny
Hardaway, the young basketball all-star who plays for the Orlando Magic.

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The signified of rural poverty:

warmth, community and family.
Nah! I wasn't born with a basketball in my cradle.
For some believe we come out dunking once we are conceived.
Superstar? I got it made, right?
I went from nothing to something overnight.
Well, don't believe the hype.
I had to work to get to where I'm at and that's a fact.
Mom and Grandma raised me to be proud
and they instilled their philosophy in me
knowing that no one could take that from me.
Nah! I had to work to get here.
At the Boys and Girls club. At Memphis State.
I had to work to be great.
Just do it.

Another spot, originally constructed as part of a Street-ball Legends

series aired in NYC, eventually went nationwide because the interview
footage was so compelling.

The signified of urban poverty:

coldness, emptiness, and
anonymity. My name is Peewee Kirkland.
I'm the guy who could have made it, but walked away.
I'm the guy who got drafted by the Chicago Bulls.
I'm the guy who scored 135 points in one game.
In the beginning I lived every kid's biggest dream.
In the end I lived every kid's worst nightmare.
The streets, the life of crime, takes lives and that needs to be remembered.

Unlike most Nike ads around 1995, the swoosh sign appears on screen to
identify this as a Nike ad, but minus the "just do it" slogan at the end because
the point is not to identify with Peewee, but to think about what went wrong

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- a sobering reminder that basketball talent alone won't realize one's dreams.
And so it ends, with Peewee's picture inserted inside a boxframe that has
been superimposed over an action-highlight scene of an unidentified young,
athletic and black ballplayer leaping to block a shot. For Peewee the success
story collapsed. On the verge of realizing his dreams, Peewee lost to the
streets. Few viewers know Peewee Kirkland because he never made it to
the NBA.l We can only imagine how many Peewees are out there. While
few remember Peewee, Nike urges viewers not to forget the conditions that
tragically turn the lives of so many young black men toward prison, addic­
tion, or an endless succession of dead-end low-paying jobs. Well, actually,
Nike doesn't encourage us to remember the conditions, but what they can
do to a person. Like most anti-drug testimonials by former users who have
seen the light, when Peewee speaks of demons, the inference is that others
might learn from his experience.
In Penny Hardaway'S 30-second autobiographical statement titled
"Work," Nike offers a formula for success - hard work, a philosophy of self­
confidence and pride, a loving matriarchy and the presence of Boys and
Girls Clubs. Framing Penny's story of growing up, from the cradle to the
NBA, are quiet images of Southern poverty shot on slow summer evenings
- a wooden front porch and the yellow glow of a porch light, concrete play­
grounds, a frog jumping out of a jar - intermixed with closeups of Penny.
"For some believe we come out dunking once we are conceived." Written
by a black copywriter, this ad immediately acknowledges the condition of
race stereotypes in order to emphasize that nothing comes easy, but must
be earned through diligent hard work. A fleeting image of an infant is fol­
lowed by scenes of a young boy in cutoffs and t-shirt (presumably Penny)
practicing his dribbling and ball-handling skills wherever he goes. Though
the ad acknowledges the conditions of growing up black, in poverty and in
a female-centered household, there is no "culture of poverty" present here.
Instead, his video family album includes scenes of the adult Penny posed
with his Mom and Grandma, the women in his life who supported him and
helped build his character. In an ad marked by a tight correspondence
between the spoken words and the visuals, the only product shot in this ad
is matched exactly to the spot where Penny speaks about how his Mom and
Grandma "instilled their philosophy in me. " Their philosophy matches
Nike's.
Though these advertisements seem directed at disabusing youth of
"the hype" surrounding success in athletics, both narratives reduce ques­
tions of success to the exercise of discipline and will-power. Very few players
will make it to the NBA. The chances of being successful if one grows up
poor and black are limited not simply by will or dreams but by material
conditions and opportunities as well. Peewee narrates from a black and
white mortise at the center of the screen against a backdrop of the cityscape,
an everyday world of sights and sounds that blur past as if filmed from a

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moving automobile. "The streets" offer a generic gloss for all that is wrong
with urban America - drugs, violence and crime. It is a vivid metaphor,
especially in light of Peewee's tragic story, that connotes both symptom and
cause of the problem. By focusing attention on "the streets," Nike alludes to
the social conditions that claim so many lives, but without actually address­
ing their material dimensions. This ad has the sober feel of a public service
spot, a reminder to young black athletes who believe their "hoop dreams"
and fortunes in the NBA will be secured simply by showcasing their dunk­
ing and scoring talents, that there are obstacles and hazards blocking the
way.
Television constructs a binary opposition between the social menace
of poor blacks and black middle class success "by privileging individual
attributes and middle class values, and by displacing social and structural
factors. " 2 Though presumably targeted at urban youth, the Penny and
Peewee stories privilege middle class values by endorsing Penny's account
of the work ethic ( " I had to work to be great"). These autobiographical
vignettes keep success in sports in perspective by humanizing these play­
ers' lives. Though these ads allude to questions of social structure, Nike
prefers to highlight an individualism that privileges the role of proper values,
personal choices, and the will-power not to give in to the lure of easy plea­
sures. Lose your discipline and you can lose everything. Such morality sto­
ries are redolent of traditional middle class accounts of individual success in
a capitalist society.

APPROPRIATING AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE

During the heyday of Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson, Nike ads drew their
value from black celebrity athletes. Yet, the subject of race frequently seemed
to disappear in these ads, even though the camera's focus was on the grace
and power of their muscled black bodies. Nike's advertising during this
period appeared to be race blind, rendering the subject of race absent, or
apparently neutral. A celebrity athlete - so long as he had a personality, or
appeared to have a personality - proved to be a commodity that seemed
unconnected to race as a category. However, this commodity-driven eclipse
of race did not impress black civic leaders who charged that this apparent
absence of race concealed Nike's exploitation of the black community - both
in terms of the appropriation of its cultural capital and its youth as con­
sumers of expensive non-durable consumer-goods.
But with ads like "Hardrock Miner," and a series of ads featuring Spike
Lee's candid assessment of racial taunts and insults on the playground, as
well as the more recent P.L.AY campaign, Nike ads began to openly address
and acknowledge questions of race as a proxy signifier for class.3 Advertisers
have normalized the subject of race in recent years, often by incorporating

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black models into the commodity formulas already used with middle class
white representations. Herman Gray observed that the 1980s' media con­
structed black stars as "confirming the middle class utopian imagination of
racial pluralism" and hence as different from blacks in general..) Jimmie
Reeves and Richard Campbell point to Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing
where Lee's character confronts the white racist Pino about his hostility to
"niggers," even though all his favorite performers are blacks. Pino responds
that they aren't black: "J mean they're black, but they're not really black . . .
there's a difference."o Michael Jordan is frequently perceived as not "black"
in Nike ads and has even been criticized as not being "black" enough.6 This
might be interpreted as suggesting that Michael Jordan is not presented as
sufficiently embodying the exoticized Other. This criticism confuses the
symptomatic observation with the deeper forces that construct it. Cultural
studies theorists point out that "whiteness" is ordinarily so taken-for-granted
because its dominant status renders it invisible. Whiteness is thus not
"marked" as a category, or put another way, it appears natural rather than
constructed. Because television tends to go along with this ideological dom­
inance of whiteness as the natural order of things, it reinforces the invisibil­
ity of whiteness that "marks off the Other (the pathologized, the
disempowered, the dehumanized) as all too visible - 'coloured'."7
Paul Gilroy touches on a related dimension of media representations
of blacks in a critique of Spike Lee's Nike ads. Gilroy perceives Lee's characters

revealed as emissaries in a process of cultural colonization, and Mars

Blackmon's afterlife as a Nike advertisement is the most insidious result.
Through that character above all, Lee set the power of street style and
speech to work not just in the service of an imagined racial community but
an imaginary blackness which exists exclusively to further the interests
of corporate America .'

Gilroy'S point is well taken, and yet we must be careful not to exaggerate.
Spike Lee did bring the power of ghetto speech ("Yo, Holmes, yo, Holmes,
these sneakers be housin"') into the heart of the commodification machine.
However, measured by styles of commercial signification, the Nike appro­
priation of inner city black subcultural codes pales in comparison with
Reebok's "Blacktop Slam-Dunk Fest" or British Knights' rendering of Derrick
Coleman as home-boy video auteur for home-boy wannabes everywhere."
The point, as stated by British Knights' ad agency, was to convey "an atti­
tude."lo Ad campaigns such as the latter set the standard for appropriating
the "power of street style and speech" for the benefit of corporate America.
The appropriation of ghetto speech and hip-hop signifiers has become ram­
pant in consumer-goods advertising, as has the borrowing of dreadlocks
and other markers of "blackness." Excessiveness, however, is not measured
simply by appropriation, but by how ads transform social relations into a

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glamorous look or style. The act of appropriating decontextualized pieces

of culture is filtered through questions of what motivates the act of appro­
priation. Erving Goffman's theory of social interaction stressed what he
called "sincerity of performance. " II Ordinarily, others will not trust us if we
seem to behave insincerely. When individuals have instrumental motives
(i.e., when we want something) we usually try to act in ways that don't per­
mit others to "see through" our performance. So too in the world of adver­
tising, where "seeing through" the act of appropriation renders its motivation
suspect. The best example is still the 1993 Reebok "Slam-Dunk Fest" com­
mercial which appropriated signifiers of the ghetto - the lingo, the gestures,
the chain link fences, the fat boys, and the graffiti - and then glamorized
them in an effort to link the cultural desirability of wild, exotic Otherness
to the Reebok symbol. By isolating and focusing on the exaggerated signi­
fiers, advertisers like Reebok construct a fantastic fiction. This tendency
quickly contradicts claims to authenticity.
This is what happens on MTV where ritual mimicry of black street jar­
gon combines postures of cool defiance with a disengaged, nihilistic atti­
tude. It is a strange paradox that the "realer" the "talk" that is appropriated,
the more the act of appropriation ends up romanticizing resistance and turn­
ing it into a style. Nike ads steer clear of this appropriation of blackness for
appropriation's sake. Nike ads avoid the appropriation of Gangsta rap
images, which form the axis on which imaginary blackness turns these days,
especially on television. Beginning with their social responsibility ads (such
as the PL.AY campaign), Nike ads self-consciously introduced the subject of
"the ghetto" by photographically stressing its "realness." Conversely, when
the question of blackness as a cultural and linguistic distinction is brought
into Nike ads, it is not the star athletes who engage it, but rather the char­
acters of Mars or Little Penny.
We speculate that Nike generally resists directly appropriating the lan­
guage and the imagery of ghetto speech because such obvious forms of
appropriation tend to be transparent. Appropriating ghetto-speak for the
purpose of boosting the badge-value of one's logo is a practice that calls
attention to itself, and may then become suspect as inauthentic. Furthermore,
this kind of usage can make the advertiser susceptible to charges of "encour­
aging undisciplined acquisitiveness" that "instigates kids to envy and thiev­
ery." 12 There can be no doubt that branded consumer items are highly visible
in inner city spaces just as they play a prominent role in the materialist
imagery of rap culture. As one of the most visible and most desirable brand
images, Nike - and in particular, Michael Jordan and Spike Lee - has received
an exaggerated share of sensationalist finger-pointing for the acquisitive­
ness inspired by consumerism among the poor. Sadly, the phenomenon of
inner-city youth robbing one another for branded clothing and shoes makes
for sensationalistic press coverage that displaces attention from the mun­
dane sociological forces at work in our inner citiesY

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HYPERAUTHENTICITY AND IISTREET"

VERNACULAR

The role of the "popular" in popular culture is to fix the authenticity of

popular forms, rooting them in the experiences of popular communities
from which they draw their strength, allowing us to see them as expres­
sive of a particular subordinate social life that resists its being constantly
made over as low and outside . . . However, as popular culture has his­
torically become the dominant form of global culture, so it is at the same
time the scene, par excellence, of commodification, of the industries where
culture enters directly into the circuits of a dominant technology - the
circuits of power and capital."

For Nike, the symbolic value of the swoosh is rooted in its connection to
authenticity - first in the authenticity of athletic performance, and second
in the authenticity of cultural expression. Nike's approach to the ghetto is to
confront its "authenticity," both positive and negative. The ghetto basket­
ball court, like the barbershop and the street corner, are public spaces in
which cultural and political matters are socially expressed and bandied
about. These are spaces that comprise what is known as a "black public
sphere."ls It is no accident that these are spaces which Nike ads adopt as
settings. Given its interest in selling sports culture, it is not unreasonable
that Nike would depict a starkly structuralist view of the differences
between the street corner defined as negative social space, space where
inactivity and an absence of structure and discipline give rise to delin­
quency and crime, and the basketball court, a social space represented in
terms of spiritual salvation and personal character building. A 1997 Nike ad
set in Chicago'S inner city invokes both sides of this to make a "stop the ----
", _ _ _ ttl .
-_.-
---- -
violence" plea. "'- "' - - ­
. _ .. _ .. ...
- - - "' -

.::::.:.-;.-
.. .:.=
::...:.=-�-:.
About [one out ofl every five black men � :.: -==.::
die before they reach the age of 25.
That was Benjy's number.
Benjy was good, the first in Chicago history
to ever be named top high school player in the nation,
right before he was gunned down.
But you know what?
Benjy's not dead.
Benjy's spirit lives on in every jump shot.
Remember, shoot over brothers Juxtaposed between frames of bas­
Not at them. ketball played against the back­
ground of signifiers of poverty are
images of Ben Wilson, now n sig­
In a determined effort to keep the focus on the "real" world, this ad pre­
nifier of the tragic consequences of
sents a sober visual realism that testifies to the horrific statistical toll exacted urban violence and also a signifier
on black youth by the decaying material conditions of the inner city. Yet, of Nike's concern.

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amidst this rubble and death toll, there is a strength of spirit that "lives on in
every jump shot."
Behind the relationship between scenes of authenticity and the space
of the ghetto is a wider historical moment. Beneath the widespread media
imagery of "the street" with its connotations of drug violence, unemploy­
ment, hustling, and generalized culture of poverty are the deeper relations
of capital flight and deindustrialization that drained away productive
resources and semi-skilled jobs to newly industrializing nations. The cul­
tural imagery of inner city basketball as a source of vitality and authentic­
ity is directly linked to the forces of economic abandonment that have
turned both buildings and people into discarded debris. The very same
forces that have demoralized the inner-city black community have also
"produced the black basketball star as a commodity and an object of desire
for mass consumption." 1 6
Exploring the imagery of authenticity in ads can permit the recovery of
these deeper relationships between social class, race, work and consump­
tion. Though not directly visible in the ads, the crucial missing link that joins
questions of authenticity to the ghetto is the middle class. Middle-class cul­
ture defines authenticity as a state of individual, social, and cultural integrity
originating from the conditions of existence in everyday life. Questions of
authenticity revolve around what is deemed to be "real," "honest," "pure" or
"immediate." Alternatively, the inauthentic has come to be associated with
that which is "plastic," "preprocessed," and "packaged." The desire for
authenticity has become tied to the quest to occupy (if only psychologically)
a social space that has not been taken over by the commodity form, because
commercialization (putting things into commodity form) corrupts the
authentic.

Paradoxically, when advertising appropriates a signifier, the content of

the signifier is ripped from its context, the source of the authentic. The
appropriated signifier reduces the authentic to an empty sign. Almost
invariably, commodification hollows out the once-authentic signifier, and
a new sign must be located and appropriated. Signifiers of authenticity are
thus continually circulated and burnt out only to be replaced by new sig­
nifiers. Searching for authenticity within commodity culture results in an
endless sign chase. The more that authenticity is signified and attached to
products, the more those sources of authenticity become calculated as
appearances. Consumers search for authenticity to escape the logic of
commodities - always pre-planned and pre-constituted - but usually
return disappointed because the signs of authenticity turn out to be no
less calculated and pre-constitute d . ' �

There is, of course, at least one decisive difference between the black
public space of ballyard basketball and the Nike representations of that
space. No matter how beautifully Nike represents that space, the very nature

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of the a d means that it takes decontextualized images and re-presents them

to tell a story. In ads, where the representation is always at least one photo­
graphic step removed from its referent, the question of authenticity tends
to be measured by how it is signified.18 That is, authenticity becomes gauged
by the codes used to signify it. Hence, when it comes to signifying authen­
ticity in ads, the ante keeps going up. This is why advertisers have evolved
a style we call "hyperauthenticity."
An exemplar of what we mean by "hyperauthenticity" appears in a
1997 series of Nike ads anchored around the African American vernacular
associated with the everyday world of the inner-city basketball court. The
"hyperauthenticity" in these ads is signified by a photographic style that
heavily overexposes and washes out the already exaggerated codes of black
and white video realism; along with the vernacular speech given voice by
Arkansas Red, an older African American man. This street vernacular is a
language of the dispossessed that carries with it connotations of resistance to
social domination, and a sense of shared solidarity. Arkansas Red performs
the role of "organic intellectual," an indigenous character, who though not
schooled intellectually in the institutions of higher learning, has the capacity
for philosophically expressing local wisdom. In each ad, he stands adjacent
to the scenes, observing, narrating, and providing commentary about this
or that essential "truth" or "morality" related to either life or basketball.
His role as organic intellectual also makes him an oral historian and folk­
lorist, a storyteller who knows, appreciates, and conserves the memory of a
community. Linguistically, these ads highlight a sense of unrepressed expres­
sivity in urban African American basketball vernacular. His voice offers a
near-lyrical ode to the "love and devotion" of playing basketball. Urban vernacular provided by
Arkansas Red and high contrast
Oh lord, did ya see that shot, man ? expressionistic photography trans­
form Kevin Garnett's body into an
Did ya see, I'm talkin', aesthetic object.
that, that was love and devotion, man.
I'm talkin' about that ball, man.
The pill, the rock,
whatever you want to call her.
That's Kevin G's old lady.
Look at his face, man.
it's written all over his face, man.
He not playin'Jor the money,
he's playin'Jor his woman
That's his wuh-man.

The vernacular of the African American

community has long been associated with a
capacity for earthy expressivity, whether that
vernacular takes the form of the blues, or

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jazz, or rap. While our written reconstruction of Red's spoken words can
indicate the expressive vitality of his colloquial dialect ("the pill, the rock"),
the written word does not permit us to capture the richness of meaning
and the authenticity of purpose signified by Red's pauses, his rhythmic
vocal inflections, or the emotion of his voice. The Nike ads featuring
Arkansas Red illuminate a "poetic topography of race and place centred
on the basketball court. " ]9 In contrast to the calculated excesses of adver­
tising language, the apparent genuineness in Red's voice conveys a sense of
linguistic authenticity that permits viewers to surrender to the pleasure of
the moment and to the desire for authenticity apparently experienced by
the native.
Of critical importance in these ads is the fact that the meaning of black­
ness serves as an intermediary term. The point of the ads is not to signify
"blackness" per se, but rather to use cultural codes associated with an urban
black subculture to signify authenticity. So far as we can tell, the point of
this ad is to express an experiential essence - the sensual pleasure of playing
basketball. Arkansas Red speaks about a love of basketball that is its own
reward ("he not playin' for the money"). This imagery presents basketball as
a place where one can explore the freedom of artistic expression. Red's com­
ments communicate a powerful love of the game as it is played by ordinary
players at countless parks and gyms. This ad doesn't simply speak "black,"
it speaks "basketball" to those who think of themselves as sharing a com­
munity and who treat basketball as a meaningful part of their lives.
Still, this ad draws heavily on the flavor of a native culture. It pushes
the authenticity of the native culture to include what might seem an impolitic
reference to gender. Tapping the authentic vitality and eloquence of black
masculinity also carries with it the baggage of unequal power relations
between black men and women.20 Whether viewers hear phrases like his
"old lady" and "wuh-man" as a legacy of sexist domination, or as a cultur­
ally marked expression of unalienated activity in a native culture, we cannot
say. What we can say is that Red's account privileges the motivation of
"playin' for his woman" over the motivation of "playin' for money." "Wuh­
man" and "old lady" are presented as metaphors connoting an object of
pure desire untainted by external motivations like money. Such expressions
draw on an uneasy primitivism that equates "woman" with "pleasure" and
opposes "woman" against the impurities of a commodity world. The ad
turns on a combination of ambivalent meanings evoked by Arkansas Red's
manner of expression. His performance opens the possibility of expressing
the joys and pleasures of playing basketball in richly sensual ways - from his
description of the sensual relationship between the player and the ball, to
the soundtrack's resonant attention to the soundings of the ball on the gym
floor, to the glistening, sweating musculature of Kevin Garnett's ebony body.
At the same time, such primitivist associations with race and gender may
also prompt an echo of ideologies of oppression which drew on underlying

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notions that gender and race are natural and biological (essential) categories
rather than historically constructed categories.21
Once excluded from advertising's social tableaus by the politics of
racism, people of color have historically been relegated in advertising to
perform either as "the exotic" or as "what we do not want to be." All that has
changed in recent years. Not that racism is dead, but racial and ethnic images
have enjoyed a symbolic resurgence in the quest for images of difference,
authenticity, and purity of experience.

Encounters with Otherness are clearly marked as more exciting, more

intense, and more threatening. The lure is the combination of pleasure
and danger. In the cultural marketplace the Other is coded as having the
capacity to be more alive, as holding the secret that will allow those who
venture and dare to break with the cultural ahedonia (defined in Sam
Keen's The Passionate Life as the "insensitivity to pleasure, the incapacity for
experiencing happiness") and experience sensual and spiritual renewal.22

In the marketplace of culture, Otherness, in the form of blackness or

exotic primitivism, has acquired a frame of meaning that encompasses imme­
diacy and pleasure. Otherness has come to signify the ability to be in touch
with one's natural and essential mode of being.

It is precisely that longing for the pleasure that has led the white West to
sustain a romantic fantasy of the "primitive" and the concrete search for a
real primitive paradise, whether that ___location be a country or a body, a
dark continent or dark flesh, perceived as the perfect embodiment of that
possibility . . . Within this fantasy of Otherness, the longing for pleasure is
projected as a force that can disrupt and subvert the will to dominate.23

In a metaphorical way, Arkansas Red's meditations about grassroots

basketball may be interpreted as a mapping of this space as a primitive par­
adise. While on the surface these ads have as their topic an aficionado's sense
of basketball, their subtext is about an identity that derives from belonging to
a totem group of aficionados. The ads metacomrnunicate a higher sensibil­
ity, an aesthetic of appreciation framed in terms of an African American ver­
nacular spoken in the colorful rhythms of a basketball philosopher. Arkansas
Red stands for an aesthetic appreciation of basketball - an appreciation that
signifies an ability to give oneself up completely to the sensual pleasures of
play. Listen to Red wax rhapsodic about the indescribable pleasures of sink­ •
ing jump shots.

I'd play just to, just to have that, that look

that, that, that feeling . . .
That feeling of the ball goin' in
You know, it's a . . .
You know, it's a feeling that you just can't describe.

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See, only another ball player understand what I'm talkin' about.
Something just feel, it feel like snow,
It feel, feel like that pure white snow.
Ya know, ya understand what I'm sayin'?
Ya see, it's a solid shot
You know like all that noise about it
Shhhhhooo, that's all you hear.
Chains may shake
but when it's goin' in
it say shoooo!
See, you and the basket has to have a relationship,
you know, no matter where you go.
You and the basket got a relationship, man.
A lot of ballplayers say
"Man my arm's so tired"
You know why, cause he's missin ' so many of them.
But when it is goin' in I never heard one ballplayer yet,
say my arm is tired.
You see your arm never get tired,
not when it's goin' in.

Red's account bears an aura of authenticity that most advertising language

can only manufacture and falsify. And where does this pleasure seem to
take place? It takes place in the marginalized spaces which fall outside the
___domain and control of institutions. It is no accident that when, in another
ad in this series, Red delivers a manifesto that "nobody owns this game,"
all the visual scenes point to the unorganized and spontaneous spaces that lie
outside the ___domain of institutional controls - the barnyard, the playground,
the sidewalk. Nor is it accidental that the African-American vernacular
becomes the chosen language for expressing a spirit of resistance, since it is
precisely the language of the native slave. If Kevin Garnett's "dark flesh"
offers a fantasy body where we might project our "longing for pleasure,"
so too these spaces conjure up muffled echoes of spaces where the cultural
and social inventions of the most socially downtrodden express the capacity
to rise up and transcend the "will to dominate." This is what cultural stud­
ies theorists mean when they speak of recuperating the Other as an object of
desire.
Paradoxically, "trash talk," the cultural product of young black men
who have been systematically discriminated against in education, housing,
and labor markets, emerges here as the language of authenticity, as the pre­
ferred vehicle for expressing unmediated desire. In an essay entitled "Talking
trash," about an earlier Nike campaign focused on New York City, Maharaj
argued that "Nike's NYC-Attack campaign enacts the economic and cultural
logic of late capitalism which produces 'trash' and recuperates it as a sign of

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difference and a site of desire."24 Conventionally, the main currents of middle

class culture regard street vernacular with fear and loathing. In schools and
in the workplace it is treated as negative cultural capital. Yet, its inclusion
in the Nike ads as an indicator of authenticity reverses that and turns it into
a desirable sign of cultural capital. Here, at least, it reveals good taste in bas­
ketball.

THE SHADOWS OF RACE AND CLASS

Nike's P.L.A.Y. campaign drew on race as a visual proxy for class relations.
The P.L.A.Y. campaign draws on the acronym for Participate in the Lives of
American Youth. In March of 1994, Nike launched its P.L.A.Y. campaign fea­
turing Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Charles Barkley with ads
that had the subdued feel of public service spots. This campaign stressed
the social alienation of poverty and its possible transcendence via sports.
Nike positioned this campaign as motivated by a sense of crisis in our com­
munities and playgrounds.

"There is a crisis in America right now," said Philip H. Knight, Nike's

founder and chief executive officer. "Kids' sports and fitness programs
are being axed from schools and the country's playgrounds aren't safe
anymore. Access to play should be a kid's inalienable right. Nike wants
to lead the charge to guarantee these rights to America's children are
preserved."25

With Michael Jordan or Jackie Joyner-Kersee narrating, somber black

and white scenes speak of an impoverished landscape where nothing grows.
The meaning of poverty is etched across these images. Kids lean out the
open window of a darkened inner city apartment; an impoverished girl in a
cotton dress faces the camera as if in a depression-era photograph; a child sits
motionless in a swing on a barren rock-strewn playground, casting a for­
lorn and ominous shadow. Socially, these youth occupy a world without
hope or a future.
Jordan appeals to our concern for
The campaign debuted during the NCAA basketball tournament with
children and challenges us to par­
Michael Jordan narrating. Jordan poses a series of questions: ticipate in Nike's vision of sports
programs as the panacea for social
problems.

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What if there were no sports ?

If you couldn't join a team,
what would you join ?
If you couldn't dream of touchdowns,
what would you dream?
What if you did something?
What ifyou coached a team?
Put up a new rim?
What if there were no sports?
Would I still be your hero?

When Jordan asks, "if you couldn't join a team, what would you join?"
the scenes turn to the imagery of gangs. Tough-looking teenage girls expres­
sionlessly confront the camera in a desolate and empty barrio setting. Males
clad in stereotypical gang garb - wool caps and hooded sweatshirts - stand
starkly against a barbed and razor wire fence while other adolescent males
hang out in front of a graffiti-covered brick wall. In a barren wasteland,
without the opportunity to participate in sports, they appear condemned
to a grim life where they display neither affect nor purpose. Without sport,
gangs are depicted as the only alternative groups to belong to, but with no
motivating dreams to spur hope, and hence no effective socialization into
middle class values. Here, as elsewhere on television, poverty and nihilism
are made to appear synonymous.26
While these scenes capture a sense of the despair that permeates con­
temporary urban America, they also gloss over the crucial absence of struc­
turing institutions that shape the lives of poor youth. Viewers are confronted,
but only indirectly, by the brute force of inequality, now framed as a collec­
tive social psychology. The studied photographic posing of poverty creates
a simulacrum of poverty. Nothing explains this inequality, its history and
its causes are as scattered and ephemeral as its signifiers. Nike mythifies
inequality so that it can be expressed in a unitary way across the faces of
children, and thus vanquished by the rising musical presence of Nike's spirit
in their lives, as passivity is replaced by activity.
In these sequences, Nike equates alienation with inactivity and bore­
dom. Alienation is reduced to misdirected leisure time among adolescents.
Disconnected from social institutions, this alienation has nothing apparently
to do with work or school, but rather becomes a mood associated with the
generic landscape of poverty. Though capitalist institutions shaped this
world, they recede from view in these documentary-like scenes. There are no
images of youth working at minimum wage jobs in fast-food restaurants or
convenience stores earning money to buy the latest shoe styles; neither are
there images of the working conditions in the South Asian factories that pro­
Charles Barklel} puts aside his
"I'm not a role model" role to duce Nike shoes. While welfare has failed to provide a reasonable quality of
speakfor PL.A. Y life and our educational system has failed to provide sufficient opportunities

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to escape ghetto life, sport is mythologized as the institution through which

dreams of success, identity and esteem are salvaged and given meaning.
Sport is positioned as providing poor youth with meaning and purpose,
while socializing them into responsible citizens.
After introducing viewers to the depressing prospects of childhood
poverty, the mood subtly shifts when Jordan asks, "What if you did some­
thing? What if you coached a team?" A background soundtrack of faintly
rising children's chatter and a female singing voice usher in activity and
movement as boys play basketball with a makeshift basket made of a plastic
box nailed to a telephone pole. In contrast to the privatized representations
of middle class transcendence, the P.L.A.Y. campaign positions the tran­
scendence of sport as embracing a higher social good, defined as the public
well-being of "our" youth. We earlier noted that many Nike ads appear with­
out a visible commodity. The appeal in this ad is precisely to the world of the
makeshift (the not-commodity), so that Nike can express its ethos of the love
of sports in its purest form - in the faces and hearts of children.
The ad concludes with a tight close-up of Michael Jordan, who reiter­
ates his first question, "What if there were no sports?" before following it
with a more self-reflexive query, "Would I still be your hero?" Onscreen
appears the copy of P.L.A.Y. (Participate in the Lives of America's Youth),
followed by 1-800-929-PLAY, Nike and the swoosh. Is this a mixed message?
The P.L.AY campaign designates an effort at remedial organized sport and
fitness programs with adult involvement to guide and supervise adolescent
recreational desires and drives. The privilege of recreational pleasure through
exercise and sports is depicted as both a right and a responsibility. Once it is
achieved then one has a responsibility to provide the opportunity to others
so that they too might realize it. Nike thus wraps itself in the stance of noblesse
oblige. The ad's writer, Jamie Barrett of Wieden & Kennedy, claims the final
line, "Would I still be your hero?" was not meant to signify a self-aware nar­
cissism on Jordan's part, but rather aimed at humanizing Michael Jordan as
someone who recognizes the kind of opportunities that sport has given him.
This reading bears Nike's characteristic mix of humility and celebrity. Jordan,
says Barrett, is deeply aware that sport is bigger than he is and that it requires
him to give something back. Joyner-Kersee echoes this thinking: "Sport has
helped me live my dream. I would have hated to live in a world without
sport because it taught me discipline, determination and dedication - qual­
ities that have helped me in my everyday life." In the Nike press release for
the P. L.A.Y. campaign, Jordan says he became the national co-chair for
P.L.A.Y. because,

Nike is making a strong commitment so that kids and adults can take back
their communities and playgrounds again. Sports can be a great avenue
for kids to stand up to the difficult pressures they deal with and is vital to
their development. I wouldn't have wanted to grow up without sportS.27

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The P.L.AY. campaign included support of Boys and Girls Clubs of

America as well as rebuilding city playgrounds. The P.L.AY. campaign thus
gave Nike a method for addressing persistent critics (such as Jesse Jackson
and PUSH) who argued that Nike has done less than it should in providing
minority opportunities. Others argued that Nike (and for that matter, all athletic
shoe companies) "exploit" inner city basketball without taking responsibil­
ity for the consequences. Alarm arose, for example, circa 1990 when a flurry of
reports circulated about inner city youths mugging and killing one another for
their most valuable commodity - the hot branded shoe of the moment.
We call campaigns such as the P.L.AY. campaign legitimation adver­
tising because of how it positions Nike as taking the moral high ground,
apparently placing community interests above their narrow market inter­
ests. If ordinarily Nike ads frame transcendence by providing the commod­
ity, the sign, the philosophy, and the heroes, here they can also be seen
supporting sport activity at all levels while providing moral leadership.
Nike's powerful symbolic presence built up by years of advertising permits
them to do ads that only infrequently mention or show their shoe products
"because they don't have to use their advertising to define their products."
Jeff Jensen of Advertising Age correctly observed that

. . . the PL.A.Y. campaign underscores the ubiquity of Nike, a name that

has become virtually synonymous with the category it continues to dom­
inate. The position allows Nike to execute ads that entertain, preach and do
anything else but sell product 28

Exemplifying this is an ad called "Piggott Street" in which Jackie Joyner­

Kersee revisits her childhood neighborhood. Black and white video codes
convey a tone of authenticity. Though Jackie Joyner-Kersee is one of the pre­
mier track and field athletes in the world, her appearance in the P.L.AY.
campaign is intentionally low key. The ad treats her as a concerned citizen
and not as an athlete. Joyner-Kersee functions here as the voice of Nike's
social conscience. The video of an impoverished inner city area recreates a
realist simulation of the material and social conditions of the East St. Louis
urban ghetto area where she grew up. Jackie's voice-over tells about a coach
at a local Boys and Girls Club who was an uplifting force in her life.29 Joyner­
Kersee's biography reveals the motivation for her involvement in the P.L.AY.
program, her desire to put into place the resources so that her story might
be replicated in the lives of others. Though the motivation of the ad may be
genuine, and its meaning emotional, this culture of poverty argument is lit­
tle more than wishful thinking. Jackie Joyner-Kersee is not representative of
those who grow up subject to the conditions of race, gender and poverty.
Positioning Nike as a concerned
socially responsible corporation,
Young black women growing up in places like East St Louis will require sig­
Jackie Joyner-Kersee offers hope to nificantly more resources than better playground facilities to dramatically
those without hope. change their life-chances. In fact, the degree of racial segregation is so pro-

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nounced in S t Louis that i t ranks among the most "hypersegregated" met­

ropolitan areas in the US.30 With racial segregation comes disinvestment,
dilapidated housing, the absence of infrastructure, and a general intensifi­
cation of the material conditions that reproduce poverty. Statistically, black
females suffer more than any other demographic category from the conse­
quences of discrimination, subordination, and poverty: poor education, lim­
ited employment opportunities, low income, inferior health care, inadequate
nutrition, and more likely victims of crime.31

SIGNIFIERS OF ALIENATION AND HUMANITY

Race as a category seemed to be a non-issue in Nike's early rounds of adver­

tising, but in the 1990s it has become a significant subject in Nike's advertis­
ing. First, Nike ran a few ads with Spike Lee using humor to directly address
the language of racism on the basketball court, pleading for more ecumeni­
cal understanding and respect for diversity. More recently, Nike has signed
the emerging golf superstar Tiger Woods, and has chosen to foreground race
as a category, first in order to draw attention to their association with Tiger
Woods, and then doing a 180 degree turn to demonstrate the declining rele­
vance of race as a category.
Nike's first ad featuring its just-signed superstar suggested that Tiger
Woods had been denied access to certain golf courses because of his race.
The ad quotes Woods, the nation's top black golfer, as saying, "There are
still courses in the United States that I am not allowed to play because of
the color of my skin." Defenders of golf immediately challenged the factual
claims of the ad. When asked for specifics, Nike publicist James Small
acknowledged there were no such places; rather, the advertisement was
meant "to raise awareness that golf is not an inclusive sport." Nike's public
relations director maintained the ad was not intended to be taken literally,
but as "a metaphor," with Woods representing other black golfers. While
Tiger Woods would be welcome to play anywhere because of his stature,
less prominent blacks would be denied playing privileges because of their
race.32 Critics accused Nike of exploiting the social injustice of racism in
order to garner attention for itself. Bob Garfield, an Advertising Age columnist,
fumed that Nike "was phony because Tiger Woods was not a victim of
racism. And they're exploiting the race issue to sell golf shoes to black peo­
ple and I think that's cynical."33 While Nike undoubtedly framed the issue of
racism in golf to publicize its entry into golf, Garfield's narrow interpretation
of the ad illustrates exactly the difference in thinking about racism with
regard to celebrity athletes as opposed to the institutions that operate in
everyday life to limit the opportunities of discriminated groups.
A different approach to race as a category structured Nike's next ad fea­
turing Tiger Woods. The "I am Tiger Woods" ad juxtaposes a montage of

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black and white photographs and color video clips of a multiracial cohort of
children in golf-related scenes (playing golf, carrying clubs, etc.) against an
occasional shot of Tiger Woods, thus offering a testimonial to Woods' power
as a positive role model for youth. Throughout, the young golfers repeat
Nike's new declaration of purpose, "1 am Tiger Woods." The ad ends with
a slow motion shot of Woods driving a golf ball with perfect form. Across the
screen, the copy reads "1 am Tiger Woods." The words then dissolve into a
swoosh.
Tiger Woods rapidly emerged as a sports "legend" in the media. Sports
Illustrated has already named Woods as a Sportsman of the Year. Media rep­
resentations of Woods focus on his athletic ability, his personality and his
ethnicity. Newsweek describes Woods as "An old pro at 20: no tantrums, no
bad behavior. Just drive, dedication and a gracious, winning style. " An
Advertising Age article observes that " . . . as he is only 20, and part African­
American, part Native-American, part Chinese and part Thai, Mr. Woods
will be used to reach demographic segments most golf marketers don't
aggressively pursue."34 Woods' multiracialism signifies marketable multi­
culturalism: a multiracial heritage with a bourgeois gentleman's personal­
ity. His image has been constructed as "intelligent, abstemious, kind to his
parents," tough under pressure, yet soft spoken. No trash-talking. No arro­
gance. Remember how Nike constructed Barkley in its "I'm not a role model"
ad. Now, Nike positions Woods as the ultimate role model. The ad's children
don't chant "1 want to be like Tiger Woods," rather, they state total identifi­
cation: "1 am Tiger Woods."
Of course, constructing an e go i de a l i n a n i mpu r e commercialized
sports world is subject to contradiction and criticism. Initially, such criticism
was directed at Nike rather than Woods. One writer summarized this criti­
cism when he bemoaned that this ideal role model had signed

. . . with Nike, the most egregiously offensive sports merchandising busi­

ness in the world, presided over by a messianic fast-buck artist named
Phil Knight. This means that Woods, as he ambles across the putting
green, wears an oversized cap emblazoned with the ubiquitous Nike logo,
a kind of stylized boomerang 35

Nike countered with public relations. "Tiger wants to be an ambassador of

change among minorities and youth, and that's certainly a goal of Nike,"
said Merle Marting, marketing communications manager for Nike's golf divi­
sion. "In the future, we will use Tiger in our brand communications, not just
as a category representative."36 While Nike constructs Tiger as a minority
spokesperson who will open up the sport of golf to minority kids, Nike also
draws on Wood's multiracial background to present Woods as a signifier of
universality. While Jordan signified physical transcendence, the ability to
fly, to do what no man has done before, the ultimate in physical achieve-

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ment, Woods emerges as a signifier of Humanity itself. This Nike ad melds

hero worship of the celebrity athlete with the celebration of the human spirit.
If we retrace the steps of cultural appropriation that contributed to this
ad, then this rearrangement of meanings engineered by Nike becomes even
more apparent. The ad draws on a closing scene from Spike Lee's film
Malcolm X in which a school teacher tells her class, "And so today, May 19,
we celebrate Malcolm X's birthday because he was a great, great Afro­
American. Malcolm X is you. All of you. And you are Malcolm X." This is fol­
lowed by a series of African American school children who stand and
solemnly declare "I am Malcolm X." Lee 's film concludes with a short mono­
logue by Nelson Mandela lecturing the children: " . . . we declare our right
on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be given the rights of a
human being, to be respected as a human being in this society on this earth
in this day which we intend to bring into existence . . . " A clip of Malcolm X
himself completes Mandela's statement, "by any means necessary."
What might be meant by the way these boys declare that "I am Tiger
Woods?" The mantra-like repetition of "I am Tiger Woods" initiates at least
three transformations: first, the ideological significance of Malcolm X is
replaced by that of Tiger Woods; second, a transformation of agenda in which
political activity is replaced by sport; and third, the utterance itself becomes
an action signifying that each child carries within him the spirit of Tiger
Woods. Whereas the television medium has generally represented Malcolm
X as an ideological radical who spoke for racial separation and the legiti­ "I am Malcolm X"
macy of violence (rather than trust in authorities to uphold the law) as a
response to racist violence, the Nike commercial presented Woods as a mul­
tiracial icon - a post-racial icon - who represents the end of race as a histor­
ically relevant category. The ritual reiteration of "I am Tiger Woods"
transforms both the identity of Tiger Woods and Nike. Each is positioned as
universal in meaning. In Tiger's case, he has been made to stand for that
which is most highly valued in our society - recognition for standing out,
recognition for great accomplishment, admiration for possessing a self that
is transcendent. Identity and equivalence again become joined when the
screen reading "I am Tiger Woods" is stamped by the swoosh. What might it
mean that children proudly avow that "I am Tiger Woods"? When utopian
impulses become channeled by commodity relations the signifieds are open
- it could be interpreted to mean that I am a good person, that my future is
open, that I have a purpose and a goal in my life, or that, with Nike in the golf
game, it now becomes a democratic sport.
How does a signifier of alienation get turned into a signifier of the Identification is established by
human spirit? Inspirational music joined to slow motion sets the ad's tone as photographic equivalence and rein­
forced by the tagline, "f am Tiger
uplifting and celebratory. Hyperreal video and discontinuous editing turn
Woods. "
glimpses of young hands holding golf clubs into hypersignifiers of hope
and opportunity. Documentary style black and white photographs inter­
mixed into the montage signify realism. Scenes of boys looking down from

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dilapidated brick buildings with "golf" written across the sides provide an
obvious poverty signifier. The montage of multiracial children's faces accen­
tuates multiple ethnicities, particularly multiracial appearances and multiple
body types. This commercial is an excellent reminder that imagery of poverty
and race can be made free floating precisely because of how we have
become accustomed to "race as a floating signifier. "37 Place gives way to
video space. The Nike commercial takes advantage of this in two ways: first,
the space of golf becomes unbound by geography, ethnicity, or class; sec­
ond, detached from its moorings in any real lifeworld, race and ethnicity
become markers of Nike's commitment to the greater glory of mankind. Nike
invokes images of poverty and inner city children in order to turn them into
the currency of legitimacy.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Maharaj notes, "Significantly, the Nike advertisement fails to say that, when offered
a chance to play with the Chicago Bulls in 1980, Peewee decided not to join the NBA
because street basketball was a more lucrative occupation" (p. 99). For a much length­
ier analysis of the Peewee ad as part of the "New York City Attack" campaign see
Gitanjali Maharaj "Talking trash: late capitalism, black (re)productivity, and profes­
sional basketball," Social Text 50, 15, 1, (Spring 1997), pp. 97-110.
2. Herman Gray, "Television, black Americans and the American dream," Critical Studies
in Mass Communication, 6, (December 1989), p. 376.
3. For a different view on the relationship between race and class see William J. Wilson,
The Truly Disadvantaged (University of Chicago Press, Chkago, 1986).
4. Gray, "Television," p. 376.
5. See Jimmie Reeves and Richard Campbell, Cracked Coverage: Television News, the Anti­
Cocaine Crusade, and the Reagan Legacy (Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1994),
pp. 101-102.
6. See Michael Dyson, "Be Like Mike? Michael Jordan and the Pedagogy of Desire," in
Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism (University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, 1993), pp. 364-74; David Andrews, "The facts of Michael Jordan's black­
ness: excavating a floating racial signifier," Sociology of Sports Journal, 1 3 (1996),
pp. 1 25-158.
7. Isaac Julien and Kobena Mercer, "De Margin and De Centre," in David Morley and
Chen Kuan-Hsing (eds), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (Routledge,
London, 1996), p. 456.
8. Paul Gilroy, Small Acts (Serpent's Tail, London, 1993), p. 189.
9. See Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Sign Wars (Guilford Publications, New
York, 1996).
10. In Rich Wilner, "Anatomy of an ad campaign; British Knights Inc," Footwear News,
October 12 1992, p. FN6.
11. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Doubleday, Garden City, NY,
1959).
12. See Michael Dyson, Between God and Gangsta Rap (Oxford University Press, New York,
1996), p. 58; Nelson George, Elevating the Game: The Histonj and Aesthetics of Black Men
in Basketball (Harper Collins, New York, 1992), p. 235. See also Cornel West, Race
Matters (Random House, New York, 1994), pp. 17-31, for an extended discussion of

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A l i e n a t i o n , H o pe & Tra nscendence: Determ i n i s m or Determ i n ation 1 17

how nihilism arises o u t o f the structural relationship between "the saturation o f mar­
ket forces and market moralities in black life."
13. Henry Louis Gates Jr criticizes those political interpretations of cultural studies that
leave aside the sociological. "The chain of causality begins with Spike, who makes
television commercials that promote Air Jordans; it ends with the devastated crack-rid­
den inner city - and a black youth with a bullet through the brain, murdered for his
sneakers. All because Spike Lee said he's gotta have it. You think Mars is funny? Those
commercials have a body count" (Loose Callolls: Notes all the ClIltlire Wars, Oxford
University Press, New York, 1992, p. 184).
14. Stuart Hall, "What is this 'black' i n black popular culture?" in Morley and Chen,
Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, p. 469.
1 5 . See Black Public Sphere Collective (ed.), The Black Public Sphere (University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1995).
16. Maharaj, "Talking trash," p. 98.
17. Goldman and Papson, Sign Wars, p. 1 48.
18. One of things that cultural theorists like Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault accom­
plished was to unmask the concept of authenticity as a social fiction - as an imagi­
nary social construct.
19. Paul Gilroy, '''After the love has gone': bio-politics and etho-politics in the black pub­
lic sphere," in The Black Public Sphere (ed.), The Black Public Sphere, p. 6 l .
20. Herman G ray, " Black Masculinity and Visual Culture," Calla lao 1 8 (Spring 1 995),
pp. 401-405.
2 1 . Hall, "What is this 'black' in black popular culture?"
22. bell hooks, Black Looks: Race lind Representation (South End Press, Boston, MA, 1992),
p . 26.
23. Ibid., p. 27.
24. Maharaj, "Talking trash," p. 1 04.
25. "Nike, Michael Jordan and jackie joyner-Kersee launch $ 1 0 million kids' sports and
fitness initiative," Bus iness Wire, March 23 1 994.
26. bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resistillg RepresCiltations (Routledge, London, 1 994), p. 169.
27. Business Wire, March 23 1994.
28. Jeff Jensen, "Nike comes out to PLAY; Public-spirited spots accent shift away from
selling," Advertising Age, March 28 1994, p. 3.
29. Even here, however, there is a major ideological difference between Nike's telling of this
story as opposed to NBC's. NBC took the same story and schmaltzed it up with music
and gauzy video and romantic voice-overs to construct an emotional hook for why
viewers would want to watch her compete in the Olympic long jump. I f she wins a
medal, then NBC can glue the meaning of this morality tale about overcoming adver­
sity to " America" as the country that permits such opporh.mity for anyone to shine and
prevail.
30. Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, Alnerican Apartlleid: Segregation lind the Making
0/ the Unciae/llss ( Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993).
31. Margaret Simms and J ulianne Malveaux (eds), Slipping Through the Cracks: The Stlltus
a/Black Walliell (Transaction Books, New Brunswick, NJ, 1 986).
32. David Zink, "Ads tee off on controversy," Rocky Mountllin News, October 6 1 996, p. 2B.
33. Cited i n Rowan Scarborough, "Critics hit Nike ads with sneaker suspicion," The
Washillgtoll Tillles, October 31 1996, p. A2.
34. Jeff jensen, "Woods hits golf jackpot; agent sees $60 million payday for young phe-
nom," Advertisillg Age, September 2, 1 996, p.6.
35. Philip Terzian, "A babe in Nike's Woods," Journal O/Collllllcrce, November 7 1 996, p. 9A.
36. Jensen, "Woods hits golf Jackpot," p. 6.
37. Hall, "What is this 'black' in black popular culture?"

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6.
TRANSCENDING
DIFFERENCE?
REPRESENTING WOMEN IN
HIKE'S WORLD

For over two decades now, a debate has simmered about how women are
represented in advertising. Does advertising imagery model or reinforce
characteristics of submissiveness, passivity, receptivity, and dependency in
women? What about the ways in which feminist morality and ideas have
been appropriated and exploited by advertisers? Since the early 1990s Nike
addressed these questions in the process of tailoring a philosophy for a gen­
erally middle class audience of women and girls. Nike evolved a new semi­
otics of gender that addresses women about the achievement of non-sexist
sports identities in a world less bound by patriarchal definitions.
As men's athletic shoe markets matured and flattened out in their
growth curve in the 1990s, the growth in popularity and audience demo­
graphics of women's sports attracted corporate America. Women represent
the fastest-growing category of sporting-goods consumers. According to
1994 sales figures from the National Sporting Goods Association, women con­
sumed nearly 80% of all workout gear sold in the United States, and now
participate in greater numbers than men in aerobics, fitness walking, swim­
ming, exercising with equipment, and cycling.! Perhaps most significant has
been the swelling popularity of women's team sports, primarily in soccer,
volleyball, basketball, and softball, spurred on by US team victories at the
Atlanta Olympiad. Institutionally, women's sports are on the map. Reflecting
these social changes, sales of both Nike's women's sports and fitness cate­
gories have surged since 1994. Nike reported that sales of its women's fit­
ness line grew 26% while the women's sport shoe market increased 45%
over 1994; and in 1995 Nike's women's fitness business grew another 51 %.

With our U.s. women's footwear growing more than 40 percent, NIKE's
focus on women's sports rose to new levels in 1997 and will remain an
integral part of our growth strategy going forward. We signed on to

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Tra n sce n d i n g D i ffe rence? Representi ng Women i n Nike's Wo rld 1 19

support the WNBA and developed more sport-specific product for

women, such as our first women's soccer cleat 2

The women's sports market has emerged as Nike's growth market of

the moment. Advertising aimed at this women's market has correspond­
ingly shifted its underlying social assumptions as well as its representations.
"It's not idealism driving the shoe companies. It's the bottom line. With sales
of men's products flattening, the companies suddenly are relying on women's
basketball, soccer, and fitness shoes to carry them.'"
Changes in the representations of women have been driven by under­
lying social changes that have taken place since the early 1970s. Statistically,
"women are in the workplace in higher numbers, earning more money, mar­
rying later or not at all, and facing tighter time constraints between work
and family." As a result,

the consumer-goods world is finally catching on to the fact that women

have buying power - they have discretionary income of their own.
Steady income growth and strong customer loyalty among women have
finally created a market niche attractive enough to lure mass-market
manufacturers "

Buying power then, in combination with the long-term impact of Title

IX, enacted in 1972 to legally bar athletic departments from discriminating
against women's programs, "has opened doors for American female ath­
letes and sparked a new level of excellence in women's sports."o As several
generations of young women passed through institutionalized sports, expec­
tations about women's participation in sports have become normalized.
Since the late 1980s Nike's path of constructing gender difference grav­
itated from a stance that inferred fitness as a gender indifferent activity; to a
gender-conscious poetics that advocated therapeutic fitness and well-being;
to a fiercely competitive participation in winning and team sports; to let-us­
now-praise famous women athletes. For at least a decade now, Nike print
ads for women's products have abstained from the conventional male gaze
that normally defines how women are posed in magazines and on televi­
sion. Around 1987, television ads featuring women such as Stacy Allison
(the first woman to climb Mt Everest) and marathoner Priscilla Welch (former
smoker, drinker, and couch potato turned into champion long distance run­
ner) were part of broader campaigns that stressed Nike's motivational and
inspirational themes, rather than gender-related angles. In 1 989, Nike
unveiled a short-lived in-your-face athletic performance ad featuring a
female triathlete who, at ad's end, snapped at viewers to stop "eating like
a pig" if they wanted to get in shape.1i This ill-advised ad sent Nike back to
the drawing-board and eventually led to Nike's popular 1991 "Empathy"
campaign which legitimated the subjective experiences of growing up female

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1 20 Nike C u lture

in a predominantly male-defined world. Nike hailed women in a therapeutic

voice that resonated with middle class consumers. These quiet, introspec­
tive ads advocated taking care of the self. Reflecting the rise of women's vol­
leyball, soccer and basketball, subsequent campaigns in the 1990s evolved
from the therapeutic ethos to a more visceral, aggressive, and competitive
sensibility, culminating in a dramatic shift of tone and voice in Nike's pre­
sentation of women and their participation as athletes in team sports. The
history of Nike's advertising to women can be thought of as a series of pro­
gressions that have erased, one by one, many of the early differences from
Nike's representations of male athletes.

GENDER DIFFERENCE IN HIKE ADS

The construction of gender difference in Nike ads has changed dramatically

in the 1990s. Throughout the 1 980s, the Nike organization was routinely
referred to as a "men's club." Nike lost significant ground to Reebok in the
mid-1980s when it failed to recognize the importance of the women's fit­
ness market. Critics charged that Nike devoted over three-quarters of its
annual advertising budget to its men's product lines. Yet despite these biases,
the differences between men's and women's representations in Nike ads do
not fall along the lines of traditional stereotypes that divide the world into
macho versus diminutive, masculine versus feminine. As a provider of uni­
sex products oriented toward performance, Nike endorses an ethos of one
size, one ideology, fits all. The core of Nike's inspirational ethos is revealed in
the following text from a Nike magazine ad directed at women.

All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say
you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough. They'll say you're
the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or
achieve this . . . THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no until all the
no's are meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very
quickly. They will tell you no. And you will tell them Yes.

Stand up for yourself. Don't let others tell you what you can and cannot do.
lt is a motivational theme that echoes throughout Nike campaigns, whether
they speak to men, women, the elderly, or the handicapped. This push
towards universality (everyone treated the same) is driven by the abstraction
demanded by the marketplace, where a consumer is a consumer is a con­
In the TV version of the "High sumer. Gender equity has been spurred along by the rising tide of the
Plains" ad, a female runner tra­
women's sporting-goods market, political correctness following in the wake
verses the open frame of a rural
landscape marked only by the spir­
of marketability: " 'Equal' is understood by the shoe companies to mean
itual allusion of an unadorned simply the same."? When Nike speaks to a desire to experience individual
church. satisfactions by asserting oneself against societal limits, it hails men and

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Tra n s ce n d i n g D i fference? Represe nti ng Wo men i n Nike's Wor l d 121

women with a similar democratic message. Hence, Nike ran identical ver­
sions of its 1990 ad called "High Plains," one with a lonesome male runner
and one with a solitary female runner, silhouetted against a panoramic shot
of a countryside at dusk: "There are clubs you can't belong to . . . but the
roads are always open."
Still, until 1996-7 there remained clearly gendered differences in Nike's
world. It may be useful to briefly enumerate some of these differences as a
prelude to our tour through the recent history of Nike women's ads. Casting
these differences starkly here may help cast light on the considerable changes
taking place in Nike's representations of women. In fact, some of the histor­
ical differences identified here have been erased in the most recent rounds of
Nike advertisements.

• A primary message in the women's ads has been that staying in good
physical condition is a lifelong activity, while the sports-oriented mes­
sage for male viewers more often involves mastery, achievement, and
being a savvy fan. Nike ads tend to maintain a strict separation of men
and women. This permits Nike to hail men and women differently,
while stressing the premise of formal equity of treatment.
• Nike's women's ads tend to be structured by extensive written or oral
text, while the men's ads depend more on intertextual media refer­
ences. Though heavily media-reflexive and ironic, the men's ads are
remarkably unreflexive about the meanings of being a male in our cul­
ture. The women's ads tend toward the inverse of this. They are reflex­
ive about the meaning of being a woman in our culture, and prefer
sincerity as a tone of voice over irony. Women's sports advertising still
lags behind the men's market in this regard: to effectively compete, the
women's ads concentrate on evoking a sense of authenticity of expe­
rience. On the men's side, questions of authenticity have migrated into
an acute self-awareness of how authenticity can be manufactured in
the age of media glitz.
• The women's ads tend to be constructed as narrative acts of subjective
expression, while the men's ads represent opportunities for narrative
construction based on interpreting a pastiche of media references.
Reading the men's ads can be an exercise in creativity, while reading
the women's ads is conditioned by identification with experiences that
are represented as art. The women's ads, epitomized by the "Empathy"
campaign, presume the possibility of a unified female ego, although
they address this through the experience of disunity. The men's ads do
not necessarily presume such a unity of self, but neither do they make
disunity an issue.
• Whereas men banter and engage in camaraderie off-the-field in Nike's
men's ads, Nike's women are rarely shown bantering or engaging in
playful acts of camaraderie; they seek bonding on the field of play, not

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1 22 Nike C u lture

off court. We surmise that because women's sports are still in the
process of being legitimated, they remain serious business. As one NBC
announcer at the 1996 Olympic games commented about the US men's
and women's basketball teams: "For the men it is all fun and games.
But for the women it is strictly business."

Some studies of men's representations identify an ethos of "hegemonic

masculinity" in sports advertising. This is defined as stressing male aggres­
sion and control linked to toughness and competitiveness, along with "the
subordination of women" and the "marginalization of gay men."R This seems
to us an inaccurate account of how Nike ads represent masculinity. Nike rep­
resents men as competitive and confident in the superiority of their perfor­
mances, but we do not see the Nike portrayal of masculinity linked to either
the subordination of women or the marginalization of gay men. Whether it
is Michael Jordan, or the imagery of the anonymous runner training across
the nightime cityscape, masculinity in the Nike universe is tacit, achieved
not at the expense of others, but by dominating something much more
abstract - the self.
Nike's advertising, as we have pointed out, draws on a vision of classi­
cal humanism that presupposes shared universal human traits. Not sur­
prisingly in American culture, Nike's presentation of men is largely
unreflexive. Nike's masculine ethos locates men's individual freedom of
accomplishment in the pride and ownership of one's performance.
Ultimately, this ethos focuses on the strength and persistence of an individ­
ual's will to achieve self-mastery. In this sense, Nike's vision of masculinity is
profoundly modernist. In the Nike cosmology, "male power" means domi­
nating one's own human nature, willing oneself towards transcendence.
From another angle, Nike's tone of voice about masculinity draws on
the cultural postmodernism spawned by the history of commercial televi­
sion in the United States. Nike ads directed at males privilege a viewer who
favors a sense of irony and recognizes densely intertwined media construc­
tions. Nike ads aimed at males favor a sense of playful mischief and a sense
of humor. If one reads an ideal male into the sum of these images, it is some­
one secure enough in the confidence of their ability to perform that they do
not have to take themselves too seriously.

REACTING AGAINST THE MALE GAZE

A majority of advertising directed at women draws on the cultural legacy of

the male gaze. John Berger and Laura Mulvey offered analytic accounts of
how the "male gaze" customarily positions women as objects of desire for an
absent spectator-owner. What's more, women are socialized to adopt the
external perspective of the surveyor as well, eyeing themselves, and judging

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Tra n scen d i n g D i ffere nce? Represe n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's Wo rld 1 23

themselves, as they imagine men see them. Women become, as Berger puts
it, "both surveyor and surveyed. "9
Even so, it must be stressed that women's representations in advertising
are hardly monolithic. The 1990s world of women's advertising has no uni­
fied imagery of woman that might correspond to the 1950s imagery of the
docile, stay-at-home housewife. This is partly because marketers are now
better able to distinguish and target niche markets within the mass media.
Advertisers define audience niches on the basis of research that identifies
values and ideological preferences. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a grow­
ing number of advertisers sought to appropriate and refashion feminist sen­
sibilities in an effort to defuse the anger of female consumers.10 Reaction to
the now infamous Swedish Bikini Team in the Old Milwaukee Beer ads led
to a further reduction of ads presenting women as mere sexual objects. So
too, some women's ads adopted self-reflexive stances about the ways in
which advertising itself promoted an oppressive ideal of women as perfect­
sum-of-their-parts dolls. Around 1992, Maidenform, Vanity Faire, Liz Claiborne,
Reebok, and Nike all presented campaigns that self-consciously addressed
women's media images and questions of women's place in American cul­
ture.]] Competition for women's markets demanded that advertisers find
new methods of hailing female difference with a variety of gender-defini­
tion pegs.
Representations of women in print and television advertising frame
women in terms of the "male gaze" as objects of visual scrutiny. We don't
have to look far to find this male gaze. When aimed at women it tends to be
most exaggerated in fashion, cosmetics, weight-loss, and perfume ads,
while the male gaze designed for men is most overstated in motorbike,
beer, and cologne ads. The male gaze is not just a pose, but also a narra­
tive device that alerts viewers to a scenario. Consider an obvious example
for leg hair removal where the male gaze structures the message. When a
Nair legs ad features a young women with smooth shiny legs frolicking in
the sunshine with a young beau who carries her on his shoulders, young
women do not need an announcer to explain the underlying logic: having
legs that look smooth, soft and hairless will make a girl attractive to her
young prince.

"Who wears short shorts?

She wears short shorts. "

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1 24 Nike C u lture

When you wear short shorts, you've gotta have Nair legs.
Just smooth Nair lotion on, and then rinse hair off.
Nair legs stay smoother, days longer than shaving.

The Nair ad coordinates the song and video to invite female viewers
to step into the model's place. When the first singer asks, "Who wears short
shorts?" the picture corresponds to a pair of female legs in shorts, with the
face and head of the model cut off, so the viewer can imagine herself in the
scene. In one sense her identity is missing, but in another, her identity is
actually located in her legs. The heart and soul of the male gaze arrives cen­
/ terstage as we see the male model's face, his head turned to give her his full
This Salon ad not only constructs attention and admiration. Now the voice-over turns to its imperative,
the model as a sight but also hails "you've gotta have Nair legs." Pleasing yourself by being pleasing to him is
thefemale viewer to look at herself
a story line that is by now thoroughly embedded in the male-gaze scene.
as an object of the male gaze.
And what's more, we no longer need to see a male in the scene to get the
point. The male gaze may seem less visible in shampoo commercials for
Revlon or Salon Selectives where no male admirer actually appears, but when
the model swings her shiny, full-of-body mane of hair, she is still playing to
an absent male admirer whom female viewers have internalized to imag­
ine how her look might play on men. The male gaze continues to define her
presence to herself.
However, this kind of advertising not only made women incessantly
insecure about the inadequacy of this or that part of themselves, eventually it
also prompted resentment and hostility. When women first began express­
ing anger about being positioned by advertising to occupy a state of perpet­
ual envy of an impossible ideal, one advertiser response was to run ads like
Pantene's, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" which acknowledged the
anger, but then proceeded to repeat the same old mantra that "I wouldn't be
beautiful unless I used this product." Between 1990 and 1993, a growing
number of ads incorporated the politics of feminism as a way of acknowl­
edging the social history of female subordination and the absence of political
or economic equality. In the brassiere industry, Maidenform and Vanity Faire
ran memorable campaigns that played off viewer recognition of the male
gaze to appease women weary of being constantly put on duty to perform as
an appearance to be surveyed and judged. Suddenly the mirror that women
are asked to perform for became an explicit part of the story the ad was
telling. These ads attacked advertising's own manipulation of women.
While advertisers like Nike and Reebok recognized the necessity of con­
testing the male gaze as an appealing framework, not all efforts to erase it
were complete. More often the male gaze remains as a ghostly, yet animating
presence. Consider the case of Reebok, Nike's chief competitor in the women's
athletic shoe market. About the same time that Nike ran its "Empathy" cam­
paign, Reebok's "I believe" campaign also sought to appeal to feminist sym­
pathies. Armed with pithy one-liners the Reebok campaign explicitly took

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Transcen d i n g D i ffere nce? Represe n t i n g Women i n Nike's World 1 25

the side of women while disavowing the patriarchal assumptions that have
defined women as objectified appearances who exist to give pleasure to
men. For example, Reebok hailed feminist rebellion with "1 believe that babe'
is a four-letter word." None the less the Reebok campaign continued to visu­
ally dwell on a redefined female physique as the goal of working out. Planet
Reebok offered women a suspect freedom to engage in "the discipline of per­
fecting the body as an object."12
Possessing "buns of steel" is the essential visual correlate of the active
women in Reebok's "1 believe" ethos; buns of steel are the primary accom­
plishment of this version of female self-realization/' which as Reebok puts
it, is "the true mark of a healthy individual." Susan Bordo shows how such
representations of women in consumer culture also feed the social logic of
anorexia: ''To feel autonomous and free while harnessing body and soul to an
obsessive body-practice is to serve, not transform, a social order that limits
female possibilities." Advertisers like Reebok take great pains to denounce
the male gaze so that "they can pretend to reject the sexualization of
women." Turning the female body into both the site and "symbol of resis­
tance in these ads" is "the profoundest of cynical bad-faith."H
Where does this leave empowerment as a marketing strategy?
Flattering women with an image of themselves as independent and in con­
trol has become a key axis of advertising and marketing competition, espe­
cially in the women's fitness and athletic shoe markets. One advertising
strategy has tried to blend conceptions of femininity with feminism, like a
recent Keds commercial that presents a millennial vision of the community of
women. Hailing "you" as someone involved in a circle of gratifying multi­
generational social relationships, this ad addresses young middle class
women who can identify with nostalgic moments such as "What size Keds
were you wearing when you learned to take a compliment? And you started
to hold your father 's hand? What size Keds will you be wearing when the
first of your friends gets married? What size Keds will you be wearing when
a woman walks on Mars?" The Keds ad weaves together markers of women's
traditional socialization with flattery about future accomplishments so that
women need not reject a paternalistic past or present in order to achieve a
sky's-the-limit-future. Yet another Reebok campaign hailed women with its
own utopian view of women, athletics, and empowerment. Reebok's "There
is an athlete in all of us" called not for universal suffrage, but rather for uni­
versal access to the means of athletic play - which was supposedly auto­
matic upon entering the atmosphere of Planet Reebok. The aesthetic
background of these ads suggests a new space (almost like heaven) where
there are no impediments to equality and freedom. In contrast, Nike's repre­
sentations of empowerment drew on a realist aesthetic in which female
actors must assert their own agency. While Nike has run its share of sub­
dued glamour shots of lean, muscled female athletes, the Nike ads accentuate
less the body than the soul as the locus of freedom.

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1 26 Nike C u lture

HAILING A NEW MARKET IN A DIFFERENT

VOICE

The pivotal 1991 Nike's women campaign drew on research that found
women did not respond to "hero worship" as did men. Nike decided the
ads needed to be "inspirational rather than aspirational."15 Nike's "Empathy"
campaign began with an eight-page magazine insert written by Janet
Champ that took the reader on a journey through the meaningful moments
of a woman's life . . . "You were born a daughter . . . " The text remarkably
encapsulated the self-contradictory experiences of growing up female in
America. Tens of thousands of women wrote to Nike in response to these
ads, which they read as "heartfelt" and sincere stories of women like them­
selves who were struggling to learn how to take care of themselves, for
themselves.
Nicknamed the "tearjerker" campaign at Wieden & Kennedy, the cam­
paign's success was due to its unforced copy, which read like a woman's
interior musings - like a woman's own diary entry. Another factor had to
do with photographic poses that continued to dispense with the male gaze.16
Nike ads hailed potential women athletes with a gaze that said this look is not
about, or for, men. Women in these Nike ads confronted the camera straight
up, shoulders often squared rather than canted submissively. The campaign
addressed women in a different tone of voice. As Charlotte Moore put it,
"we realized . . . we could talk to women how you would normally talk." F
Women could read these ads without feeling positioned, and without feeling
commanded, because the text addressed them as peers who share cultural
experiences.
American consumer culture is marked by an obsessive desire to stand
out by virtue of things worn, or looks displayed. If advertisers and mar­
keters had their way, individual consumers would be forever careening from
one display of self to another, never quite certain that they have found the
right fit, but still convinced that the right fit is out there waiting for them to
find it. But advertising is itself schizophrenic about what kind of self is
appropriate. The long-standing cultural ideal for males may be referred to as
the autonomous ego - a self that is resolutely sturdy, confident and once
formed, unchanging in its fundamentals. But the ideal that has been installed
for female consumers is a far more plastic vision of self, a self cast in terms of
fashion. Though few of us would willingly admit that we believe we can
find a satisfying self in a package or a box, in a culture geared to finding
satisfaction in acts of consumption it is easy to suspend judgment just long
enough to buy into the ready-made identity associated with the sign of a
brandname or a look.
In this cultural context, Nike chose to hail female readers with what
appeared to be autobiographical narrative excerpts. Hailing women con-

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Tra n scen d i n g D i ffere nce? Re prese n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's World 1 27

sumers in this way spoke to a recognition that women already have selves,
albeit selves that are complex and contradictory, selves that have evolved
through existential crises, selves that have survived the assaults of patri­
archy and consumerism. Nike ads spoke sympathetically to what Judith
Williamson calls the "alreadyness" of those existential selves.

Nike was the first sports company to "get" women. A few years ago it
published a series of popular print advertisements with sayings like, "You
do not have to be your mother." The poetic prose spoke to ordinary
women who were lifting weights or doing aerobics for the first time. IS

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YOUTHOUGIIT YOU
WERE A PRINCESS.

This ad from the "Empathy" campaign illustrates how self­

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structed category. Still the slide from social construction back

to the exaggerated mythos of individual self-construction
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the purpose of declaring the power of the individual woman to
resist the forces of traditional socialization. By punctuating
the piece with "You Decide," Nike's rhetoric of self-determi­
nation and personal choice identifies with women's resistance
against ideologies of biological necessity.

The Nike "Empathy" ad spoke to the process of developing a self over

the course of a lifetime - a self that corresponds neither to the fixed ideal
defined by the male gaze nor to the female plasticity that accommodates to
other people's vision of you, and of your life. Having established a sense of
autobiographical rapport, the ad concludes by raising the female self to a
new plateau - "You became significant to yourself." This campaign stressed
giving the female consumer permission to fashion her own identity.

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1 28 Nike C u lture

And you know when it's time to take care of yourself, for yourself.
To do something that makes you stronger, faster, more complete.
Because you know it's never too late to have a life.
And never too late to change one.
Just do it.

Nike's women's fitness ads celebrate the internal self of everyday

women. Like so many other Nike campaigns this one metacommunicates a
sense of no-hype, no spectacle. Hailing the viewer as "you" invites her to
try on these autobiographical musings as if they might be her own. Nike's
prose poetry invited subjective introspection and reflection, but more impor­
tantly it invited women to join in a philosophy of life. By punctuating this
eight-page narrative of a life's journey with the Nike swoosh and the familiar
"Just do it" slogan, Nike positions itself as a philosophy and a way of life.
Nike's first women's TV advertising campaign was aired in February
1993. These ads constructed the appearance of soothing, therapeutic spaces
within a world that otherwise seems to be rushing past. One ad followed a
woman on a fitness walk through an urban setting. Shot in an artsy, black
and white photographic style, Sigourney Weaver's voice-over narration coun­
seled the viewing subject, "Go slow." "Don't rush," she cautioned, "the world
will wait for you. The world wouldn't spin nearly as well if you weren't in it."
Speaking like a therapist, her voice-over invites women to activate a true
inner self and overcome the internalized social forces that block a deep self,
the "I," from realizing itself, and perhaps as importantly, taking care of itself.
Judging by the volume of letters Nike received about this campaign - one
report claimed 100,000 letters - it touched a cultural nerve with its messages
of "self-actualization" and "empowerment. " In contrast to most ads that
come across as phony when they try empowerment as a theme, "only the
ads that really speak to women with authenticity - the way Nike does - are
going to be successful at thiS."19 Nike's women's ads present the authentic as
anti-spectacle by locating its imagery as discourses about everyday life.
Unified by its style of photography and tone of voice, this campaign
offered existential meditations. A second ad featured a quiet, soothing voice
and a soundtrack of new age folk music, while the prose poetry of Janet
Champ again embraced a therapeutic ethos. Expressing awe and wonder
about the physiology of the female body, the ad turns into the performance
of a secular theology of self in relation to the modern world.

The next time you walk by a mirror, look at your shoulders, how they rise, how
The setting and look celebrates they fall. Look at the way your neck holds up your head . . . It is a miracle. This
contentful introspection. body. And every move you make is another celebration. Or a prayer.

While the mirror as a prop usually positions women as objects of the male
gaze, here the combination of text and image frames the absence of the male

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Tra n scend i n g D i ffere nce? Represe nti ng Wo men i n Nike's Wo rld 1 29

gaze. The way the model admires herself does not speak to an imagined
male, but to her own pleasure in her body and its movement. The adver­
tisement presents a justification for being-in-yourself. It offers none of the
usual enticements that physical workouts are worth it so you can appear
more attractive to others - the kind of imagery that dominates the covers
of magazines like Self and Shape.
The last of the three ads, called "Running," follows a woman emerging
from a triangular space of water, then running in slow motion along vaguely
surreal corridors, even though her expression indicates that she runs with
purpose and direction.

You were born. And oh how you wailed. Yourfirst breath is a scream. Not timid
or low but selfish and shattering. With all the force of waiting nine months under
water. The rest of your life should be like that. An announcement.

Juxtaposing metaphors of biology against those of culture, this ad offered

another cautionary tale urging women not to be timid or submissive because
of their female socialization, but to be assertive, indeed, even "selfish and
shattering."

Turning the marriage vow on its head

Nike boosted its profile in women's sports in the following years, creating Air
Swoopes, its first basketball shoe named for a woman, and sponsoring the
US women's soccer team, the high school girls' All-America basketball game,
as well as a "huge volleyball festival in Davis, Calif., for 7,500 high school
girls. "20 Nike ads reflected the emergence of women's team sports in vol­
leyball, soccer, and basketball. Unlike the previous round of therapeutic
narratives, these ads focused less on the individual woman who has
accepted the Nike ethos into her life, than on the experience of women's
team sports. One Nike ad for women's soccer turned the language of tradi­
tional marriage vows against patriarchy in favor of female bonding. The
contrast between the intensity of women's team sports and the traditional
language of marriage vows reveals what is at stake. For these women,
shown leaping and diving to achieve a team victory, the meaning of team
(female bonding) has taken on the supportive covenant of the marriage vow
while leaving behind those passages that deal with "obeying" a patriarchal
order.
The voice-over, viewers are led to believe, is that of Mia Hamm, a pre­
mire American soccer player under contract with Nike. She is, however, nei­
ther named nor identified.

We areflesh and we are blood and we are bound together

for better, or worse,

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in sickness and in health

through thick and through thin
in good times and in bad
until death or the world championship title do us part.

An ear-piercing scream calls the others to order. These vows are then
repeated by the collective voices of the United States women's soccer team set
against a compendium of spectacular action shots. Their marriage vow now
refers to their commitment to one another in their desire to win the world
championship. This goal requires a total commitment shared by all the team
members. Celebratory images, a montage of soccer highlights - kicks, head­
ers, saves - dissolve into focused and determined facial expressions. An
acoustic guitar builds in intensity, lending the images a sense of emotional
consequence. The commercial aims to show empowered women through
Female sports are serious business athletics.
signified by flashing glimpses of Their bodies fly through the air, collide, and skid through the mud.
athleticism and voices ofgrim
The ad celebrates a toughness of both body and spirit. Their goal and their
determination.
qualities of determination, concentration, and toughness become the basis for
female bonding. While Nike often constructs male bonding around the activ­
ity of humorous banter (see Chapter 3), Nike's representation of female bond­
ing takes the form of passionate sincerity. Apparently, for the female athlete
to be taken seriously, intensity is necessary. In the mid 1990s, Nike repre­
sented sport as empowering to women by constructing its female athletes as
resolute, determined, committed, and humorless. Nike women played sport
with serious resolve, rather than for fun.

They are a pack of wolves: beware your sheep

Themes of toughness, dedication and determination to accomplish the goals

of being the best and winning are also played out in a Nike women's vol­
leyball ad that draws an analogy between the women's volleyball team and
a pack of wolves. Matching the athletes' looks of unwavering firmness of
purpose is a background soundtrack that consists of team chatter along with
the ambient gym sounds of players engaged in intense practice. The video is
punctuated by a guttural, bloodthirsty scream of effort and intensity as a
young woman strikes the ball in a put-away attempt. An older female voice­
over narrates as these lines appear across the screen.

[They are] not SISTERS

[They are] not CLASSMATES
[They are] NOT FRIENDS
[They are] not even the GIRLS TEAM.
[They are a pack of] WOLVES.
Tend to your SHEEP

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Tra nscen d i n g D i fference? Represe n t i n g Women i n Nike's World 131

JUST DO IT
[SWOOSH symbol]

The ad purges all traces of femininity. These volleyball players are depicted
minus the construct of the feminine. They don't necessarily even care for
one another. What they do is work as a team to achieve domination and the
kill. Just as the voice-over pronounces them a pack of "wolves," we see a
young woman going up in slow-motion to spike the ball. Her teeth are
clenched and bared in fierce determination as she prepares to execute the
kill. Women can come together with seriousness of purpose and not be
deterred from goals of mastery. We have observed women who read this ad
as empowering, as well as those who read it as an intimidating and overly
aggressive construction of the female athlete.
This ad takes explicit aim at all conventional imagery of women's ath­
letic teams. Forget everything you've ever assumed about females, the ad
cautions, because these women are hungry to win. Does membership in the
women's team provide the collective focus necessary to overcome the restric­
tions of traditional social relations? How does the symbolism of wolves and
sheep play out in terms of gender relations? Paired together, the symbols of
wolves and sheep, function as a semiotic opposition. Wolves connote wild,
aggressive animals that roam and kill in packs. Sheep represent the opposite:
domestic and meek, they follow passively in herds and are the prey of
wolves.

Hood river women: reading the open text

Earlier we noted that Nike has tended to picture women engaged in sport
as humorless and intensely serious. A notable exception to this tendency
was a Nike ad titled "Jodi" about young women living and playing in the
woods above Hood River, Oregon. Shot as an excursion into the everyday life
of several young women who live in this wilderness area, "Jodi" spoke to the
joie de vivre of the physically active life.

This is where you can mountain bike, you can sail, you can climb, you can bike.
I just get, like bruises and things. See my bruise.
You know I'd hate to just die, being old and not have had any fun.
Wow, I live here.
Balancing your play, your work, your social life.
I'm happy here.
But we both need [pause] really cool men. [Laughter]

l
Unlike the soccer and volleyball ads where female bonding is based on
strong affectional behavior of teammates focused on winning, here there is a
convivial attitude. In "Jodi" the young women ham for the camera which

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opens up the possibility of multiple interpretations because the viewer has

more difficulty gauging how distant the speaker is from the words she utters.
Though on first glance we might suppose that depicting women as
bloodthirsty and aggressive animals in the volleyball ad would place them
closer to male representations, "Jodi" actually comes the closest to portray­
ing women in the same way Nike portrays men. These women enjoy a bond
based on the banter and shared jokes of a common lifestyle. And yet, it is
Do these women really need "cool precisely here in their banter that interpretative ambiguity arises. Just how
men?"
adventurous is this ad in challenging conventional hegemonic encodings?
Perhaps quite inadvertently, the ad yields different interpretations by open­
ing up the question of whether we rely on heterosexual or non-heterosex­
ual assumptions. Read on the basis of cultural assumptions about
heterosexuality, the joke at the end of the ad goes something like this: "yeah,
we love it here cause it gives us a chance to stretch and experience ourselves
while we are young, and yeah we love being self-sufficient, but ha-ha, in
the end we still need and want guys." But the joke reads quite differently
if the reader suspends presuppositions of heterosexual relations. This sec­
ond reading draws on visual cues as well as the discursive text, so that as the
last line is uttered, the young woman who is speaking clutches the arm of her
friend while yet another women, her back turned to the camera, walks past
them through the kitchen. Can this be read as women joking about the
absence of men because they have found a satisfying paradise based on a
community of women?

"If you let me play"

When play is transformed into sport, the physical body is made social.21

One of Nike's most talked about TV ads debuted in August 1995. Titled "If
you let me play," this ad gave voice to the consequences of denying girls
the same opportunities for sports that boys routinely receive. This ad com­
bines quick camera takes and slow-motion shots of preteen and teenage
girls on a park playground signified by swing sets, monkey bars, and a sim­
ple merry-go-round. The spot features a tum-taking of girls' voices as they
recite the long-term advantages in their lives if they play sports. Shown in
tight facial close-ups, the young girls solemnly speak in soundbites that
sound as if they have been scripted by social scientists and women's health
advocates. The encounter with children speaking adult thoughts is initially
startling, as they stare into the camera and flatly intone:

If you let me play

If you let me play sports
I will like myself more.
I will have more self-confidence.

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Tra n scen d i n g D i ffere nce? Represe n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's Wor l d 1 33

If you let me play sports.

If you let me play
If you let me play
I will be 60% less likely to get breast cancer
I will suffer less depression.
If you let me play sports
I will be more likely to leave a man who beats me.
If you let me play
I will be less likely to get pregnant before I want to.
I will learn
I will learn what it means to be strong
To be strong
If you let me play
Play sports
If you let me play sports. Nike positions sport as the panacea
for social problems by linking
images of childhood to statistics
Just do it
that will determine theirfuture.
[Swoosh symbol]

Nike represents a new breed of advertisers who try to make ads serve
their own narrow commodity agendas by trying to give the ad a place in
the field of public culture - a space where public debate is raised. The cre­
ators of "If you let me play" - Janet Champ, Rachel Nelson, Jennifer Smieja,
and Angelina Vieira - have been explicit about their intentions.

What we hoped to create with this advertisement was twofold. One, we

wanted to help end the discrimination every little girl - and woman - is
faced with when it comes to organized sports. And two, to alert fathers,
mothers, teachers, friends, family members and girls themselves to the
profound, and unsettling, benefits that sports and fitness can give them if
they start young enough. (T)he benefits (of sports for women) are
astounding. 22

In another interview, Janet Champ stressed her concern that without

realizing it, parents and teachers buy into the ideology that little girls need to
be protected. This, Champ observed, results in lower self-esteem and confi­
dence, and precipitates a self-fulfilling gender prophecy.23
Indeed, the ad brings together elements that otherwise rarely co-exist in
the entertainment world of advertising. Advertising normally tries to avoid
serious issues, because such issues are apt to generate controversy on the
part of some audiences. But generating controversy is precisely the agenda
here. Obviously, Nike is not alone in challenging these boundary norms -
witness the advertising of Benetton in recent years, or the pro-environmental
spots put forward by Esprit, or the Liz Claiborne billboards which focus on
violence against women.

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"If you let me play" exemplifies Wieden & Kennedy's effort at breaking
through the clutter of television advertising. Remember that every other
maker of women's athletic shoes and apparel was also fashioning some
blend of feminism and consumption. The Nike ad broke through the clut­
ter not just because of its message about women's health and well-being,
but also because it violated conventions about how ads address or hail
us.
This ad startled viewers as an adventurous effort at changing what is
acceptable within the field of advertising discourse. It is immediately obvi­
ous that the young girls are reading lines given them by others. They have
been instructed not to "act" but to recite their lines as if reading them. This
rhetorical trope allows them to speak about their future in such a way that
the children become both the subjects and objects of their own discourse.
Newspaper reviews of the ad called it "chilling" or "eerie. " We are not used
to little girls looking straight into the camera and reciting "facts" about
"adult" subjects in the low-affect tones of social scientists.
Though Nike and Wieden & Kennedy may have had a specific message
they wanted to get across, this ad invites multiple interpretations. It should
be quickly noted, however, that multiple interpretations are of no concern to
Nike because the goal of "If you let me play [sports]" was to "stir the pot."
And that is what the ad did: it generated talk.

The first time I saw the commercial, it stopped me cold in my living

room, and I had to sit down for a moment, just to absorb what had been
said. Part of me was thrilled by what I was seeing. Part of me was pro­
foundly disturbed. More than 20 viewings later, I am still pulled in two
directions.24

This ad worked like a Rorschach test, eliciting a range of interpretations

and emotional intensities based on what the viewer brought to its inter­
pretation. A survey by sociology-anthropology students at Lewis & Clark
College found that wealthier and more educated young women were more
likely to negotiate the ad's meaning in a cynical and skeptical way. They
tended to question Nike's agenda for running the ad, whether Nike's com­
mitment was to the lives of adolescent girls or to garnering more sales.
Typical of this response was a student who wrote on the survey, "Does
Nike really have a social conscience, or are they just trying to sell shoes?" Of
course, these are not necessarily mutually exclusive goals; but in the minds
of many young people who have been exposed to thousands and thou­
sands of ads, there does seem to be a distrust of pecuniary motives even
when they are accompanied by rhetorics of concern for others.
Alternatively, young women from working class families, or whose fami­
lies do not have a history of college education, or who are from small
towns, seemed to embrace the ad more enthusiastically and with fewer

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Tra nscen d i n g D i ffere nce? Re prese n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's World 1 35

qualifications. Young women who self-identified as athletes were most

likely to see the ad favorably.
But girls were only one audience for this ad. Liz Dolan, Nike's Vice
President of Marketing, stated bluntly that the ad was aimed at parents.
"We felt we needed to talk to adults about the benefits if girls get to play."
"Our intention was to be provocative; we wanted adults to think" about
barriers to girls' participation in sports. Nike's women's sports marketing
manager, Sue Levin, added that "Dads with daughters - my greatest allies
are dads with daughters. They want their kid to have every opportunity in
sports that they did."25 Indeed, if it has become "socially acceptable for girls
to play - and excel - at sports," one major reason is that the current genera­
tion of fathers want to share the experience of sports with their daughters.
"We finally have the first generation of men who lived through the women's
movement," Billie Jean King said. "They may not want to admit it, but
they're making a difference with their daughters. These dads want their
daughters to have opportunities."27
Of course, because the Nike ads, men's as well as women's, seek to stir
the pot and get people buzzing about the ad, they also run the risk of antag­
onizing some viewers. Many an ad makes truth claims - but this Nike ad
stood out because it did not make truth claims for the product, but rather
about the benefits of sport for girls. The Nike ad advanced truth claims about
health issues, gender equity, and women's futures. The ad commented on
broader social issues. For this it was hailed in many circles. But truth claims
also invite people to look for evidence that might counter the truth claims. Is
there really evidence that by playing sports "I will be 60% less likely to get
breast cancer?" One criticism of the ad questioned whether there was real
statistical data to support these claims. Nike's advertising department antic­
ipated this with a fact sheet on women's health and participation in sports
activities. Its background research showed that half of all girls who partici­
pate in sports have above-average levels of self-esteem; that female athletes
have more positive body images than non-athletes; that adolescent girls who
participate in sports are less likely to become drug dependent, have lower
teen pregnancy rates, and are more likely to graduate from high school.
They also gathered claims from studies that showed a lower propensity to
heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and back
pain in sportswomen.
In our own survey of young people's responses to the ad, we found
the ad elicited thoughtful and reflective criticisms. Some were put off by the
method of having children recite "adult facts" about cancer and abuse,
because this violates a sense of childhood innocence.

I do remember being quite struck by the ad, and unsure how to respond
to it. It does have a jarring effect, something like watching ventriloquism
- the words seem very disconnected from the girls who speak them. You

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1 36 Nike C u lt u re

don't want them to be saying them, or even to be thinking of things like

depression or breast cancer. Uen W.)

The ad elicited responses that went well beyond the text itself. For exam­
ple, some questioned the reductive simplicity of asserting that sports would
solve the problems confronting women. One such response called into ques­
tion Nike's implicit "class-ism."

Women who stay in an abusive relationship are subject to some of the

blame themselves, since they could leave, or turn their spouse in to the
police. The Nike ad plays indirectly on this sort of judgment - "I will be
more likely to leave a man who beats me" suggests that at some level it's
simply a matter of volition, independent of the fact that she may be
pinned by economic advantage, or rather, disadvantage. (Jason H.)

Perhaps the most telling criticism came from women who resented the per­
mission-requesting tone of "If you let me play." Why not, retorted angry
women, say "When I play sports . . . "

One obvious problem: Why do the girls have to beg? What are their broth­
ers doing while these girls stand passively on the playground? Boys don't
have to ask permission to play sports. Like adults, they just do it."

This same author goes on to note, however, that young girls are quite capa­
ble of contesting and discarding that aspect of the message.

Fortunately, girls are laughing, too. A coach reports that the girls on her
team are using the phrase "If you let me" jokingly, the way they joke
about ''I've fallen and I can't get up." It is ironic that in an effort to defeat
some of the consequences of a patriarchal system that positions females to,
as bell hooks puts it, "do it for daddy," Nike's ad situates the daughter's
fate in father's decision to "let" her play sports.

Following the release of the ad, however, there were more reports of
positive reactions than negative. Nike received calls from viewers who
thanked them for "affirming that sports are good for girls." Callers included
"coaches, teachers, fathers of young girls, mothers choking back tears while
describing their dashed dreams of playing sports as children."28 The ad
played especially well to women 35-55 years old who have children, who
work full time, and work out three to five times a week. Women seemed to
like the strong, non-whining message.29
The ad resonated with Americans' long-held belief that there is some­
thing inherently valuable in athletic competition, that "character" is built in
locker rooms and on playing fields. This ethos of amateur athletics now
extended to include all women. This is ironic, given the fact that Nike has

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Tra nscen d i ng D i ffe rence? Re prese n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's World 1 37

become rich and powerful b y treating more and more sports a s commod­
ity centered. As one journalist observed, "Despite the fiction that sports is
designed to teach young people valuable life lessons, the truth is that most of
our sports - down to the scholastic level - serve mainly to generate winners
and entertain the community."30
More broadly, this ad might be seen as directed at the broader adult
public as a pitch for public support for athletics and play facilities for female
youth. This fits with the agenda of Nike's P.L.AY. campaign aimed at a crisis
of community recreation facilities. Like the PL.AY campaign, the "If you
let me play" ad legitimates the company as having broad social and public
concerns and interests. As a corollary to such legitimation claims in these
ads, Nike did not name itself as such, but rather identified itself solely on
the basis of the swoosh symbol and the slogan "Just do it."
One year after "If you let me play" was aired, Nike released a sister ad,
"There's a girl being born in America." Its video style immediately identified
the ad as Nike's follow-up to the previous ad.

There's a girl being born in America

And somebody will tell her she is beautiful
And somebody will tell her she is strong
Somebody will tell her she is precious
And somebody will say she is tough.
There's a girl being born in America
And someone will give her a doll
And someone will give her a ball
And then someone will give her a chance.

Unlike the previous ad, this one juxtaposes the socialization of girls into a
world defined by the male gaze (for example, this scene of a little girl wear­
ing heart-shaped sunglasses and applying lipstick) against imagery of sports
participation. By posing the issue in a binary way between "dolls" and
'balls" the Nike ad sought to privilege action over appearance. The preferred
reading of the ad is consistent with the earlier ad, equating "chances" with
leaving behind a life defined by gender stereotypes.
About the same time that Nike aired the sequel, Reebok released an ad
that took dead aim at "If you let me play," using the line several times to
mock Nike as wimpy. The Reebok ad is what we call a "sign war" ad because
it doesn't pay much attention to products, but focuses instead on Nike's
imagery or sign. Nike had hitched its swoosh sign to "If you let me play," and
now Reebok sought to make Nike pay for this by trying to ideologically one­
up Nike in the competition for the hearts and minds of young women.
Reebok's professional basketball-playing women won't ask permission
because they intend to do it, period: "and we are most definitely not waiting
for anyone to let us play."

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"We got next" changes of address ?

To no one's great surprise, in late 1994 Nike researchers found that when
asked what came to mind when they heard the name Nike, young girls typ­
ically mentioned Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley or another male ath­
letic star.31 This spurred Nike to sign up a number of female basketball stars
and to develop a new basketball shoe designed for women and named after
their young star, Sheryl Swoopes.32 More generally, Nike began to change
direction in its women's advertising.
Joan Benoit-Samuelson is revered on the Nike campus as one of a select
inner circle of sainted athletes. But few outside the Nike faithful remember
this pioneer women's marathoner. Jackie Joyner-Kersee was Nike's first lwni­
nous female star, but her most prominent advertising appearances were in
the P.L.A.Y. campaign where she gave autobiographical testimony to the
claim that coaches and athletic facilities can make a difference in the lives
of impoverished youth.
A booming marketplace for women's sports prompted Nike to change
direction in 1994 to develop female athletic stars who combine intensity of
focus with a desire to win. Today, the Nike swoosh brands a stable of female
athletes that includes Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley, Gabriella Reese,
Mia Hamm, Monica Seles, and Picabo Street. As Nike draws on these estab­
lished performers, it has begun to mimic the approach that worked for them
with their male celebrity athletes which was to play off the athlete's per­
sonality and sport. Hence, Monica Seles, a tennis star, is presented in a light­
hearted entertainment ad full of intertextual playfulness (she plays at being
a female James Bond), while Mia Hamm, the premier American soccer ath­
lete, appears in ads that pay homage to her intense drive and dedication,
drenched by the elements and her own sweat.
During the buildup to the 1996 Summer Olympics, women's athletics
received a higher television profile than ever before. Just prior to the Atlanta
Nike commercials of Reese and Olympics, the NBA announced they would leverage the excitement and hype
Street end in a photograph signed generated by NBC during their Olympic coverage into a new professional
with a swoosh. women's league. Since the enactment of Title IX in 1972, making it illegal for
athletic departments to discriminate against women's programs, the quality of
women's sports programs has gradually improved. "In the 24 years since
Title IX was passed, a generation of women athletes has come of age."33 It
was thus no coincidence that the final Nike ad run during the 1996 Olympic
games used the simple device of a voice-over reading from TItle IX to frame an
edited sequence of images of young women playing sports: "No person shall
on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of,
be treated differently from another person, or otherwise be discriminated
against in any interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics."
The act of reciting of Title IX like it was the Pledge of Allegiance deci­
sively indicates Nike's public commitment to the agenda of women's

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Tra n scen d i n g D i ffe rence? Represe n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's Wo rld 1 39

athletics. We would suggest, however, that

the more profound ad in terms of changing
how an advertiser hails women about ath­
letics was a 1996 Nike ad that told a story
about three members of the US Olympic
women's basketball team playing a pickup
game on the park playground. A Spike Lee
voice-over narrates: "Once upon a time,
three girls went to Rock Steady for a pickup
game." Three young women are seen walk­
ing to the park. They approach a playground
where five young men are playing basket­
ball. As they near the court, the tallest
woman casually calls out "Yo!" One of the
young men turns to face her / us and half
Nike stars prepare to take on the
smiles, as she continues, "We got next. " The camera returns to her face, as boys.
Lee identifies each woman in turn: "Lisa is a center. Sheryl is a forward.
Dawn's a point guard . " Each of these women play for the US Olympic
Team. They are not named as such, but sports fans will recognize Lisa Leslie,
Sheryl Swoopes and Dawn Staley as Nike endorsers. The camera seems to
prefer Lisa Leslie, long and lean, stretching out her legs, before moving to a
shot of Swoopes removing her sweatshirt, and Staley in the motion of tying
an unseen shoe. A connecting shot of them slapping low fives, gives way to
the game itself played against guys on the playground. The first, and most
significant, scene shows Staley banging bodies with the opposing point
guard who lays a shoulder into her chest as he tries to drive past her on
offense. We can hear her grunt with the force of the blow. On the audio
track, the collective voice of the gallery reacts with an "ohhh. " Perhaps
coincidentally, perhaps not, in the background on a school wall appears a
repeating sequence of cut-out doll images of little boys and girls holding
hands.

Images ofperformance are linked

to gestures of achievement, accep­
tance and camaraderie.

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1 40 Nike C u ltu re

Swoopes drives to the basket past one of the larger men, her quickness
leaving him flat-footed. A closeup shot of a young man watching through a
chain link fence represents the primarily male gallery scattered around the
court observing and commenting on the quality of play. They seem duly
impressed. In the following scenes, Staley is seen playing physical basketball,
setting a moving screen so that Leslie can spot up and shoot. Throughout,
viewers can hear the women chattering to one another in the background
like, "take the jumper Lise." After sinking another running jump shot, Leslie
slaps a high five with one of the guys as she says "good game." Another
game follows with the only Nike sneaker image in the ad, as one of the
women makes a cut down the lane. The following camera shot of Swoopes
driving successfully to the basket suggests that she made the move. Other
scenes show Swoopes acknowledging the assist from Staley, and the women
playing defense, getting their hands on the ball defensively and knocking
it away. While Swoopes is seen playing defense, Lee chimes in again: "And
this isn't a fairy tale. So, they didn't beat every guy." Swoopes tries to block
a shot but her opponent scoops the ball over her and into the basket. But,
with a dozen or so guys watching from the sidelines, Staley launches a two
hand set shot that drops. Lee continues, "But they beat enough to say: 'bas­
ketball is basketball. Athletes are athletes.'" The screen cuts to "Just do it"
painted across the playground, which is then replaced by a swoosh across
the shadows cast by a chain link fence across the asphalt. As the video of
the swoosh becomes overexposed one of the girls can be heard calling out,
"our ball," suggesting that the games continue.
Less spectacularized than the "Wolves" ad, which gave a metaphoric
turn to participation in women's athletics, this ad takes a superrealist
approach. The story narrated by Spike Lee is one of authenticity - it is told
as a story that has the ring of truth to it. This authenticity is expressed in the
visual details of the ad. The gesture of acknowledging the assist is, for exam­
ple, a gesture formerly associated with men's play. Its inclusion in the edited
flow of the game signals that Nike has elevated the women's game to the sta­
tus of legitimate basketball. The video naturalizes and normalizes the activity
of women basketball players going toe to toe with the guys holding court on
the playground. "And this isn't a fairy tale" steers us back to the everyday
Sometimes the most profound world of hoops in the park, where competitive women athletes will win their
shifts in media representations are
share of contests.
the unobtrusive and quiet shifts.
The 1 997 Nike street basketball
campaign hailing ballplayers (fea­
turing the musings of Arkansas CONSTRUCTING FEMALE CELEBRITY ATHLETES
Red), made no effort at differenti­
ating the mix of scenes of women
Since the watershed ads discussed above, Nike advertising to young women
playing ball from the scenes of men
has raced along, with each new series of ads shifting the ground of repre­
playing ball. Though they are
depicted separately, they are sentations. While the most apparent change is the move away from self-con­
sequenced as equivalent. scious legitimation of women's sports, it is no less significant that Nike has

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Tra nsce n d i n g D i fference? Represe n t i n g Wom e n i n Nike's Wor l d 141

shifted the weight o f its women advertising t o focusing o n star athletes.

These revisions are driven by Nike's perception of changes taking place
amongst the young women who make up new markets. Nike feels that these
young women are no longer concerned with justifying sports for themselves,
but rather accept women's sports as a natural part of their lives.
Listening only to the male voice-over reciting the words of a Nike soccer
commercial, someone who had grown up in the male-dominated American
sports culture would not likely assume it to be about a woman.

The best football player in America

Will not be seen on television this Sunday.
Not while there's a Pro Bowler's tour.
America did not see the best football player win a gold medal in Atlanta.
America did not see the best football player win our only World Cup.
Because all the networks agree
The best football player in America [pause]
Isn't goodfor ratings.

This ad is scripted to play off the common expectation that in the context
of sports, an urunarked gender statement will be read as male. The European
reference to "football" as opposed to the American distinction between soc­
cer and football (the latter, an almost universally male dominated game)
renders this uncertain. Still, the opening scenes suggest a deliberate attempt
to confuse the identification of a gendered body. Even subtle background
codes that mark gender identity are either scrambled or missing: the sound­
track amplifies ambient sounds into metallic, grating, discordant noises,
while the deglamourized setting of the opening scenes is an overexposed
copper-tinted closeup of water dripping in a comer, framing a closeup shot
of the back of a sock-covered calf and cleated shoe. One might guess, based
on familiarity with sports, that the scene's referent is the runway from the
locker room to the field beneath an older stadium, where players prepare
to take the field, nervously kicking the wall to knock debris from around
the cleats, while water drips from pipes above.
Like the other three ads from this campaign, this ad hailed soccer fans
and players about a shared resentment (note the sarcasm of "not while there's
a Pro Bowler's tour") that comes from being ignored by American televi­
sion networks wed, in equal measure, to the masculine violence of the NFL,
and to an American ethnocentrism that regards its sports as superior to other
cultures' games. However, unlike the other ads, this one is about a female,
Mia Hamm, the "best football player in America." Those who know soccer,
players and fans, already recognize Mia Hamm in spite of her relative lack of
media exposure. Other viewers might not recognize her on the first view­
ing, unless they alertly catch sight of her surname as it flashes across the
screen in a fraction of a second on the back of her jersey as she launches her-

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self to head a ball. Alerted to the presence of that flashing identification

mark, second and third time viewers may also figure out and join the sig­
nificance of Mia Hamm to the other meanings of the script. Hamm is iden­
tified not as America's best "female" football player, but as the best. When the
edited video is placed against the soundtrack, it turns out that Nike may not
just be referring to a network bias against soccer, but against women's sports
as well.
The swoosh that comes across the scene of the closing frames is the sign
of an imaginary totem group. We use the word imaginary not to invalidate
this totem group, but to call attention to the way in which the placement of
the swoosh as a signature refers not to a thing, but to a Desire. That desire
might be hero identification, "to be like Mia Hamm." In fact, "I wanna be
like Mia" is the subject of another sponsor's ad, where it explicitly plays off
viewer familiarity with the oft-cited Gatorade ad of some years back with its
tagline, "I wanna be like Mike." More broadly, this ad invites young women
athletes to join the symbolic totem group signed by the swoosh. It invites
them to see in Nike an entity that understands and supports resentment
about biases against women's sports and soccer; an entity that respects and
supports excellence in sports, no matter the question of gender.
It is also important to observe what desire is absent from this repre­
sentation. Markers of femininity have been tossed aside in representing the
body. For the purpose of demonstrating how different Nike advertising has
become from the typical television representations of femininity, compare
the Nike ad with a commercial for Pert Plus shampoo that also features the
same Mia Hamm, but constructs her as an athlete who is also/still an attrac­
tive woman. The Pert Plus ad splits Hamm into two, one the sweaty ath­
lete (the before image) and the other, attractive woman (the after make-over
image). The Pert Plus ad offers the solution to the desire for an imaginary
ego-ideal that unifies the competitive, sweaty athlete and attractive (to the
male gaze) young woman. Nike does not offer this solution, but rather con­
structs Mia Hamm, the female athlete, as an ego-ideal that is wholly inte­
grated as an athlete. Concern with appearance constructed as a feminine
trait has no place in the Nike philosophy. Once upon a time, sports-hero
worship had no place in the Nike women's philosophy, but all that has
changed.
Finally we must report that in August of 1997 Nike aired a series of ads
promoting the WNBA and some of its marquee athletes. Reminiscent of the
Dennis Hopper ads for Nike football, these ads built on the premise of an
obsessive fan who surrounds himself with life-size cardboard cutouts of
WNBA team members. These strained efforts at quirky humor together with
the visual tone associated with the amateur handheld camera indicate
another milestone in the development of Nike's advertising to women as it is
now sufficiently established that it no longer needs to take itself or women's
sports so seriously.

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Tra n scen d i n g D i ffe rence? Represe n ti ng Wo men i n Nike's World 1 43

THE NEW WOMAN IN THE NEW CAPITALIST

WORLD ORDER

Since the Summer of 1996, the disparity between the ideology of empow­
erment that Nike addresses to female consumers and the employment prac­
tices of Nike subcontractors in Indonesia and Vietnam became front-page
news. Human rights groups charged that Indonesian women workers who
assembled Nike shoes were not paid a living wage, were subject to unhealthy
working conditions, and were denied the most basic of rights, including the
right to freedom of association and free speech. In a widely noted New York
Times editorial, Bob Herbert argued that "the definition of empowerment,
for Nike officials, depends on whether the woman is buying their shoes or
making them."3� On a tour of the US designed to amplify these charges, a
representative of the Indonesian women seeking better working conditions
commented that she and her co-workers had always assumed the Nike "Just
do it" slogan which they saw on posters in the factory, meant "Don't talk,
work harder."35
As the leader of a new global political economy of sign value, Nike has
a vested interest in depicting a new pluralism of differences united by its
interest in reproducing its capital and the commodity form. Like other adver­
tisers in recent years, Nike has been willing to bend away from patriarchal
ideologies to a more diffuse, some would say pluralistic, construction of
gender frames and definitions. Patriarchy does not deliver profits to Nike
circa 1996. Because Nike's women's advertising builds on the premise of pro­
viding sport to as many individuals as will consume it, Nike bears no alle­
giance to patriarchal conceptions of what is or is not appropriate behavior for
women. Nike has always positioned itself as the upstart company, always
the rebel or maverick, and authentic in an unpretentious way. To back away
from these meanings in its advertising and promotions aimed at women
would not likely serve its market interests. As the leader in the contemporary
shoe industry, Nike has an interest in attacking the appearances of domination
based on gender, race, class and sexual preference. "Supporting girls in
sports yields tremendous marketing benefits for advertisers" in so far as
"the women's sports market is currently a $10 billion market and growing.//](i
Nike's successive strategies with regard to its women's ads illustrate an
ideological process that sociologists refer to as "the moving equilibrium of
hegemony."37 Questions of hegemony are always about contests over power,
induding the power to define issues. This is why battles over hegemony
are typically fought out in the realm of language and images, where we
encounter the frames and the categories that predominate in how people
make sense of their world. In contests over how to define relationships, the
"moving equilibrium of hegemony" suggests that dominant ways of inter­
preting the world may be flexible enough to absorb oppOSitional points of
view as a means of deflecting the brunt of criticism. In the case of Nike

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1 44 Nike C u l tu re

advertising, the engine that drives this moving equilibrium has been market
competition to secure wider market niches. Nike's success in growing the
women's athletic footwear market testifies to the fact that in today's world of
consumer advertising, the most successful advertisers assemble ideological
representations that both support and oppose dominant social interests.
We are not dismissive of Nike's makeover from a men's club to a promi­
nent corporate ideologue in behalf of women's rights and equity just because
it has been driven by the pursuit of profits. However, this relationship
between cultural imagery of women and the forces of commodification
reopens unsettling questions about whether women are empowered or dis­
empowered by the extension of market institutions. The contradictions of
capitalism confront us starkly - on the one hand, expansion of the consumer
marketplace demands that marketers embrace images of female equity and
empowerment, while on the other hand, the profitable production of shoes
and apparel press women in developing nations into the grip of disem­
powering market forces.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 . Nancy Lieberman-Cline, "Sporting goods companies target women's market," The

Dallas Morning News, November 2 1995, p. 4B.
2. NIKE, Inc. 1997 Annual Report.
3. Jeff Manning, "Corporate America is finally embracing women's athletics," The
Oregonian, July 2 1995, p. A15.
4. Michele Mahoney, "Courting Women," The Denver Post, April 29 1996, p. F1. See
Suzanne Bianchi and Daphne Spain, et al. "Women, work, and family in America,"
Population Bulletin 51, (December, 1996), pp. 1--48.
5. Rita Henley Jensen, "Far from the finish line," The Oregonian, July 21 1996, p. C5.
6. Donald Katz, Just Do It: the Nike Spirit in the Corporate World (Random House, New
York, 1994), p. 152.
7. Michael Lewis, "Just buy it," New York Times Magazine, June 23 1996, p. 20.
8. Mark Trujillo, "HegemOnic masculinity on the mound: media representations of Nolan
Ryan and American sports culture," Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8,
September 1991, pp. 290-308.
9. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Penguin, New York, 1972); Laura Mulvey, "Visual pleasure
and narrative cinema," Screen, 16 (1975), pp. 6-18.
10. Robert Goldman, Deborah Heath and Sharon Smith, "Commodity feminism," Critical
Studies in Mass Communication, 8 (September, 1991), pp. 333-51.
11. Cyndee Miller, "Liberation for women in ads," Marketing News, August 1 7 1992, p. 1;
Karen Avenoso, "Trapped by self-actualizing ads," Advertising Age, November 23 1992,
p. 18.
12. Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body (University
of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1993), p. 179.
13. Susan Douglas, "Flex Appeal, buns of steel and the body in question," In These Times,
September 7-13 1988, p. 19.
14. Bordo, Unbearable Weight, pp. 179, 298.
15. Jann Mitchell, "Instinct for inspiration," The Oregonian, October 23 1994, p. L4.

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Tra n sce n d i n g D i ffe rence? Re prese n t i n g Wo men i n Nike's World 1 45

16. Robert Goldman, Readil1g Ads Socially (Routledge, New York, 1992).
17. Cited in Warren Berger, "You've come a long way . . . maybe," Advertisil1g Age, February
1 1993, p. 22.
18. Mariah Burton Nelson, "Nike just doesn't get it," The Buffalo News, October 18 1 995,
p. l 0.
19. Berger, "You've come a long way," p. 22.
20. Nelson, "Nike just doesn't get it," p. 1 0.
21. John Wilson, Playing by the Rules: Sport, Society, and the State (Wayne State University
Press, Detroit, 1994), p. 37.
22. pubweb.acns.nwu.edu / -ksa878/wchb/ astound.htm.
23. Karen Anderegg, "Women who shape our ideas of fitness: Janet Champ," Mirabella,
March 1996, p. 33.
24. Jennifer Frey, "Nike puts shoe on other foot; it fits, though perhaps not comfortably:'
The Washington Post, October 15 1995, p. 07.
25. Manning, "Embracing women athletes," p. A15.
26. Tom Zucco, "Giving girls a crack at the bat:' St Petersburg Times, May 21 1996, p. 1 0.
27. Nelson, "Nike just doesn't get it," p. 1 0.
28. Mary Schmitt, "Nike commercial makes a long-overdue point; ad extolling benefits
of sports for girls elicits grateful reactions," Austin A merican-Statesman, October 19
1995, p. C2; Lieberman-Cline, "Companies target women's market:' p. 4B.
29. Mahoney, "Courting women," p. F1 .
30. Philip Martin, "Sports mostly just entertainment, despite the earnest ad campaigns,"
A rkansas Democrat-Cazette, November 5 1 995, p. IE.
31. Greg Hassell, "Sold on games that women play:' The Houston Chronicle, July 1 7 1996,
p. l .
32. Lewis, "Just buy it," p. 20.
33. Hassell, "Sold on games," p. 1 .
34. Bob Herbert, "In America: from sweatshops t o aerobics:' The New York Times, June 24
1996, p. A15.
35. Julie Whipple, "Nike vows to improve monitoring in Asia:' The Business jouYll al, July
26 1996, p. 27.
36. A media kit for Girls and Sports Extra cited by Stuart Elliott, "Sports Illustrated and
Nike hope girls just want to read about women's sports and female athletes:' The New
York Times, July 15 1996, p. 011. Appearing on ABC NIGHTLlNE, June 24, 1997, Sue
Levin of Nike acknowledged that by the year 2000 Nike seeks to derive 40% of its sales
from the women's market: "This is an opportunity where what's good for Nike's busi­
ness is also the right thing to do because we really believe strongly as a company that
sports are good for girls and women."
37. Todd Gitlin, "Prime time ideology: the hegemonic process in television entertain­
ment:' Social Problel1ls 26, 3, 1979, pp. 251-265.

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 7.
THERE ARE MANY PATHS
TO HEAVEN

It has become a truism that sports stadiums have taken on characteristics

once associated with places of worship. Each week millions of people enter
these temples and shrines of sport to participate in the ritualized competi­
tions they offer. Sports events now chronicle the transition of the seasons.
Holidays are big game days, while miracles reprise as the Play of the Day.
Religious metaphors fuse with sports lingo in colloquial expressions such
as "the Hail Mary pass". We bestow deity-like status onto athletic heroes.
A statue of Michael Jordan hovers We wear the corporate emblems and colors of our chosen teams on our
above the boutiques ofNIKE­ clothes, and even tattoo insignias on our bodies. When you walk down the
TOWN. street or through the mall do you see more swooshes or crosses?
How often have we heard sport described as offering individual
redemption through overcoming physical and social adversity? As the power
of religious discourse wanes, sports discourse sometimes replaces it as a
place for presenting middle class homilies about the meaning of moral life.
Sports stories routinely adopt allusions borrowed from religion that blend
determination and will power with themes of transcendence over the social
world, the limitations of one's own body, and even fate. However, these
moralizing platitudes associated with sport stand in stark contrast with the
obvious commercialization of sport and the frequent violations of legal and
moral codes by big name athletes that get reported in the news (spouse
abuse, drunken driving, rape). In response, to relegitimate themselves, sports
leagues tout their good works with promotional messages that reveal play­
ers supporting a higher calling - e.g., the United
Way or the Special Olympics.
Having hitched its business to the spread of sports culture, Nike has
tried to distance itself from the sign of corrupted, over-commercialized
sports, while maintaining an irreverent, even sacrilegious, attitude. And yet,
while Nike ads disdain embracing anything that might smack of endorsing
the religion of sports, or the excessive moralizing that goes on in its name,
they do speak to questions of spirituality.

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There a re Man y Paths to H eaven 1 47

SPIRITUALITY A LA CAR!'E

Nike ads address questions of personal spirituality couched in aesthetic rep­

resentations of athletic activity. Under the sign of ecological enlightenment
and reenchantment, Nike hails its ACe audience with a multimedia ode to
finding one's spirit in communion with nature. Elsewhere, under the sign
of respect for difference, Nike addresses the subject of AIDS, while its 1996
Olympic ads hail the spirit of ascetic self-denial in pursuit of a goal. The
idea of a single path to heaven is fundamentally inconsistent with Nike's
wide range of niche markets, so Nike ads offer a plurality of spiritual ide­
ologies to choose from. Nike appeals to what some sociologists now call "reli­
gion a Ia carte." In a social world defined by individuation and privatization,
the search for spiritual meaning often turns into "a practice of appropria­
tion of symbols, ideas, and meanings into a religion oriented around, and
legitimated by, the self." Stewart Hoover sees religious practice in the tele­
vision era as "a situation of seekers turning to a largely commodified inven­
tory of symbols, values and ideas out of which they appropriate those which
fit best into senses of themselves. " 1 Like shopping for shoes, pick the pair
you like, leave the others behind, and if the clerk gives you any grief over
your choices, find another place to shop. Religion a Ia carte as a set of con­
sumption choices clearly fits well with the stress on niche marketing; so
well, in fact, that it prompts us to wonder whether the therapeutic ethos of
advertising has actually contributed to this preference for customized
religion.
In their role as our mass-media public philosophers, Nike offers homi­
lies and narratives well suited to consumers who select their religion buf­
fet style. Where better to seek a morality fit for living in a world of
commodity relations? They rarely if ever get preachy; they aren't into guilt;
and their ads respect the viewer. And the morality comes in all sorts of fla­
vors and styles. While multiple flavors, individually wrapped, make for
what some would call a "postmodern fragmentation" of meaning and belief,
they also have a decidedly anti-authoritarian overtone. There is no single
path to heaven.

Irreverent spirituality and the crisis of meaning

In the 1970s, the US began to experience in an acute fashion what Michel

de Certeau calls "the devaluation of belief."2 This devaluation of belief has
been the product of a long historical process in which beliefs were "har­
nessed" and "captured" so that they could be "transferred" to emerging
institutions - for example, beliefs lodged in churches were transferred to
secular institutions such as the nation state. We argue that the routine and
continuous practice of reassigning cultural and social values to commodi­
ties eventually took its toll on the public will to believe. When Belief and

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Meaning are routinely put to the service of marketers, consumer wariness

builds. Where once Belief and Meaning were thought to be limitless and
inexhaustible, there now stands impassive, cynical disbelief. As we noted
in the earlier chapter on irreverence, the leading edge of advertisers has
reacted to this cynical turn among audiences by adopting a self-reflexive
and mocking stance in sympathy with the viewer. Yet, while Nike ads preach
irreverence, they also seek to project the idea that Nike has a spiritual core -
that Nike has a soul!
An architectural critic recently wrote that Nike's lavish new NIKETOWN
in Manhattan turns "shopping into a form of worship" in a "shimmering
temple to capitalism.'" If so, then NIKETOWN might rightly be called a tem­
ple of sign value. But if this is the shrine to the "Church of Nike," its ministry
is located in Nike ads which tend to a diversity of spiritual attitudes among a
world full of jaded and cynical viewers who still want to believe in some­
thing. Wade Clark Roof observes that the religious mood in the United States
in the mid 1990s has shifted away from a theology of fixed beliefs toward an
experiential and expressive quest "attuned to body, mind, and self."4 It is
precisely this latter experiential and expressive quest that Nike addresses.

Saving the self

Might we be stretching too far if we suggest that Nike advertising some­

times envisions sport as a form of secular salvation or redemption? If religion
is conceptualized in a traditional way, replete with fixed theology, ornate
symbolism and clergy as father-figures, then indeed Nike ads will be found
wanting. As we have already seen, Nike keeps its symbolism streamlined,
and tightly minimalist at that, while almost always leaning toward anti­
authoritarian expressions. And, while we are still debunking the idea of Nike
coupled to religion, we should add that Nike never, ever, proclaims that a
wearer will achieve salvation.
Instead, one body of Nike ads constructs sport as a conduit to another
level of consciousness. If we look carefully, we can still see traces of Protestant
traditions underlying these contemporary representations of spirituality.
While the bulk of Nike's imagery glorifies the desire to achieve and excel
through hard work, Nike also uses a therapeutic voice to spiritualize the
quest for inner peace and self-satisfaction. But Nike's engagement with ques­
tions of spirit does not end there. It offers, as well, an occasional glimpse of
a re-enchanted, sometimes magical relationship with the world via our inter­
est in sports.
While the visible appearance of religiosity has been expunged from
these ads, we see traces of various Christian conceptions of the soul flavoring
Nike's advertising. On the one hand, there was the sober, pious Protestantism
that Max Weber saw as demanding that individuals perform their "calling"
- the activity they had been destined by the Lord to perform. Individuals

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There a re Man y Paths to H eaven 1 49

were enjoined to work, and ascetically deny themselves all pleasure, to ful­
fill the Lord's bidding. Over time, this ethic became intertwined with the
spirit of capitalism, and the austere connotations of eternal salvation or eter­
nal damnation dropped away while questions of personal transcendence
became associated with individual determination - the will to succeed." We
now recognize this simply as the "work ethic," the ideal that hard work
results in achieving beyond socially defined limits and success is the con­
sequence of one's own initiative and doggedness. The twentieth century
motivational discourse surrounding athletics draws heavily from the lan­
guage of this value system. Cliched stories - and there are a myriad of them
- about athletes who, despite hardship and handicap, achieved beyond
expectations because of their inner drive remain a staple of television sports
coverage. NBC's 1996 Olympic coverage concentrated on telling stories of
athletes who transcended poverty, or a horrid family life, or physical injury
to reach the Olympic competition. Corporate legitimation ads (IBM's great
moments in sports), military recruitment campaigns (the Army's "Be all you
can be" campaign), and commodity advertising (Champion, "It takes a little
more to never say never") hammer away at this "tried-and-true" motiva­
tional narrative drawn from sports: have a goal, don't be distracted or dis­
suaded, work harder than anyone else. Achievement is realized through
competition. Self is realized through its achievements.
Neither Luther nor Calvin offered the possibility that one could
achieve salvation. With Luther one was saved by faith, not by good works,
and with Calvin salvation was assigned by God and could not be earned
based on human action. Nevertheless, as Weber observed, true believers
persisted in seeking signs of their salvation in "good works" - at first, the
logic of this was that if you proved yourself worthy, then perhaps you were
affirming your predestination to everlasting life. Somewhere along the line,
notions of predestination became perceived as archaic, supplanted by a
modem ethos of performance and merit as the measure of a man's worth.
And yet, an ascetic work ethic resurfaces in Nike ads such as the "Search
and Destroy" ad that pushes it to the extreme. The 1996 campaign which
surrounded this ad presents an inverted Protestant ethic which calls not
for suffering in the workplace, but a suffering of one's body in an activity
pursued at no one's discretion, a suffering endured willingly without threat
of coercion. In this way, the self proves (demonstrates) itself worthy of
recognition through suffering.
T. J. Jackson Lears refers to an alternative Christian ethic which "flowed
from the Augustinian ethic of piety and which sought to close the gap
between heaven and earth through the cultivation of intense inner experi­
ence."6 This ideology stresses finding one's place in the world, being in touch
with oneself, and achieving a level of self-realization that emphasizes a state
of being. This self is contingent upon being deeply absorbed in experiencing
the world, particularly one's inner world? The goal of this ethic is personal

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1 50 Nike C u lture

immanence, achieving a state of peace with oneself. Robert Bellah calls this
ethos "expressive individualism" and pictures it as a therapeutic discourse
which served as medicine for a soul crippled by the forces of moderniza­
tion - urbanization, industrialization, and bureaucratization.s A call for self­
actualization, personal self-fulfillment, emotional well being, and the value
of sensate experience countered the narrow self-fulfillment attained from
economic success. This ethic spurs those disenchanted with the spread of
urban civilization to search for salvation within themselves or in their rela­
tionship to nature . Despite the fact that sport has grown increasingly ratio­
nalized, sport is nevertheless positioned in opposition to rationalizing forces
as an activity that allows one to achieve a state of personal immanence .
Often associated with non-competitive sports, this narrative has traditionally
been used in advertising to hail women more than men.
Sports discourse offers several paths to heaven: personal achievement,
self-actualization, transcendence or immanence. Each path assumes the pos­
sibility of individuals achieving a coherent identity. The path of achievement
constructs identity in a state of becoming. There is always potential. Identity
and self-esteem are attained in dialectical relationship with the level of com­
petition. One sets goals, overcomes obstacles, achieves those goals, and repeats
the process ad infinitum. Or, one can choose the path that constructs identity
as a state of being that is already there but disrupted by the modem world.
Sport provides a path for rediscovery, a chance to know thyself again. While
some sports tend to be associated with one theme over the other, athletics in
general provids avenues for both transcendence and immanence. We should
hasten to add that these themes are not mutually exclusive . The hypercom­
petitive and therapeutic themes can be seen blended so that physical exer­
cise mixed with determination provides spiritually rewarding moments.

Spirit and the struggle against decay of the body

It is important to remember that for Nike the growth of sports culture means
both the growth of participation and spectatorship. In the realm of partici­
pation, the religious theater of sports and consumption gives way to the
advocacy of a personal philosophy of life .
A 1994 Nike ad attacked stereotypes and cliches associated with the
senior population. The senior athletes who appear in this Nike commercial
appear to transcend any presumed physical limits of their bodies while con­
testing prevailing definitions of old age. Aging itself is framed as a social-psy­
chological construction.

J do not play bingo.

I am not shrinking.
J am not strongfor my age, I am strong.
I will retire for the night

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There a re Many Paths to Heaven 151

I will begin again tomorrow

I will never say I have fallen and I can't get up
I am wrinkled and I am gray
but I am not old.

In Nike's universe, the typical social construction of the elderly as physically

winding-down crumbles before the will-power of individuals who perse­
vere at the hard work necessary to offset the diminution of the body.

Age, like time, was no longer seen as a gift from God over which the indi­
vidual had little control. Now both time and age were seen as a kind of
private property, capital that, when used well and invested correctly,
would produce more time and better aging, but when used badly could
bring failure and humiliation. In the second half of the nineteenth cen­
tury, the meaning of old age changed abruptly. A long life was no longer
a sign of God's grace but an accomplishment attributable to the virtues
of the individual. Hard work and the right habits of consumption were
now the source of longevity . . 9

In the late 1980s, Nike ads also featured senior citizens - recall Walt Stack
who ran 17 miles every day through the streets of San Francisco and the soft­
ball playing octogenarians in the "Kids and Kubs" ad. Whereas those ads
relied on a wry, understated sense of humor along with a twinkle of tone in
their elderly voices, the anti-stereotypes ad has no cuddle to it. The black
and white video conveys a tone of earnestness, and Nike constructs a corre­
spondence between these declarations and the visual testimony of senior
athletes diligently training in the empty confines of a deserted stadium.
Hyperreal techniques mix jump cuts, swish pans, and dissolves with slow
pans to create a montage that celebrates power, strength and, most impor­
tantly, the human spirit. Amplifying this spiritual dimension, the black and
white grainy film with high-key lighting creates a temple-like atmosphere.
This ad presents working out as a solitary and prayerful activity for
those committed to their personal existential quest. This is no retirement
community. These venerable male and female athletes lift weights, throw
the shot put, run the stairs and the track, with one man narcissistically pos­
ing his developed upper-body musculature. Juxtaposed to his wrinkled face,
his smooth musculature appears even more incongruent and striking. This
scene is, however, an exception to the rule in Nike ads. Unlike so many other In the Nike philosophy the only
sports fitness ads, Nike ads do not often dwell on muscled bodies. Soloflex limit to physical achievement is
one's lack ofwill .
ads, for example, highlight a different notion of transcendence based on the
ability to reshape (remake) your body. The narcissism of body sculpting is the
reward of working out:

the workout, as the contradictory synthesis of work and leisure, may well
represent the most highly evolved commodity form yet to appear in late-

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1 52 Nike C u lture

twentieth century capitalism. The workout isolates the individual for the
optimal expenditure of selectively focused effort aimed at the production
of the quintessential body object. Nevertheless . " the workout, and par­
ticularly the nautilus workout, includes utopian dimensions as well.lO

Soloflex exemplifies this intensely rationalized activity, scientifically orga­

nized to yield the greatest results. Unlike Nike's alternately celebrity or play­
driven vision, Soloflex offers the perfection of a machine-like body, Instead,
Nike offers a vivid evocation of the therapeutic ethos, an ethos that evolved
with the demise of Protestant religions and their influence on the moral life
of the middle class soul. In the Nike philosophy, advancing age need not be
regarded as a barrier, A drum and guitar background intensifies the closeup
expressions of determination matched with low angle shots of physically
challenging feats. The body is only limited by its own physicality when the
human will submits to the aging process itself. Decay is a state of mind for
those who allow it to happen. Once again, this ad joins the themes of tran­
scendence and immanence. The identity of these seniors is not dependent
on the social definitions that construct their age group, rather it is about an
inner sense of purpose expressed by their resolve to push their physical lim­
its. "Just do it."

Hailing inner motivation

Running ads often mix statements of achievement motivation with thera­

peutic imagery. Running can be constructed as a competitive sport (the race)
or as a solitary activity (the euphoria of the run). The physiological, psy­
chological and even spiritual benefits of long distance running are often
touted in running magazines. Inner peace, a sense of confidence, and
mind-body harmony may be achieved through the repetitive rhythm of
running. The spiritual side of running is not about competition but the
being-in-the-world that the activity itself offers participants.
Nike's first television ads directed at women may have shifted the

...- '!.,.�
, ':!, -�l
emphasis from running to fitness walking, but the theme was similar, cele­
. � ,. � , ''''''
, fJ
�JjI
\ 4��J ,rr ,
; brating the self-realization and inner peace gained through the physical
;
.jt.�, ' ':�. 4�_��Il" ';
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activity of fitness walking, The therapeutic workout resulted in a healthier

" '�'�,:,�...:.c"-.
\
r
..
• ""'..=. ... . �
=- self. Time spent with self in solitary activity permits self-reflection about
I
� I,
" ." , one's own spiritual well-being.
, ' . . I .
,' .... The commercial titled "Heritage" captured an ethereal sensibility as a
As a lone runner runs past a street solitary runner was shown running past a collage of familiar Nike images
cleaner in the pre-dawn hours, a and scenes from other ads, projected across the skyline of a darkened city
spectacular sports moment is pro­ backdrop. The tagline, "There is no finish line" quietly appeared at ad's end.
jected on a city building. What is
Subsequently, the ad was re-released with the "Just do it" tagline. "Heritage"
the relationship between these two
I1lOments7 Equivalence or gave voice to Wieden & Kennedy's recurring vision of athletic activity as nour­
opposition? ishment for the soul and as an end in itself, The collage, however, shows

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There a re Many Paths to Heaven 1 53

highlights of great sports moments - Jordan dunking, Kurt Gibson's game

winning home run, a runner crossing a finish line, sprinting wheel chair
athletes, a shot putter, and so on. A soothing piano background accompa­
nies the runner through dark, deserted urban canyons. The images projected
on buildings and bridges have an ethereal feel against a harsh urban back­
drop. While the music and the rhythm of the commercial are therapeutic,
we also sense the internal motivation of a person who needs no prompting
and no reward. Despite the cold urban environment, this runner is at peace
with himself. While the city sleeps, his commitment to running remains
internally motivated.
In a similar fashion, Nike's reference to AIDS in another running com­
mercial pays tribute to the spiritual strength and fortitude that refuses to
surrender to this disease. The ad's structure is simple. A male long distance
runner runs through a scenic wooded landscape. The tone of the ad is thera­
peutic, running through a natural setting with a pleasant and uplifting musi­
cal background. Situating this solitary workout in this peaceful setting are
pithy, straightforward titles in black frames.

RIC MUNOZ, LOS ANGELES.

80 MILES EVERY WEEK.
1 0 MARATHONS EVERY YEAR.
HIV POSITIVE.
JUST DO IT.

The matter-of-factness of the presentation - 80 miles a week, 10 marathons a

year, HIV positive - somewhat masks the therapeutic mode of address. But
this ad struck a chord not because of its therapeutic tone of address but
because Nike ventured into the often repressed political climate surrounding
HIV with an attitude of both normalization and transcendence. Nike's sign
value is contingent on its willingness to take risks in its representations. The
AIDS commercial itself supports this side of Nike's self-image.

SUFFERING TO WIN

At the same time that Nike privileges a therapeutic ethos, personal equilib­
rium, and the concept of domination-free play, there are plenty of Nike ads
that privilege a model of self grounded in the intensity of aggressive com­
petition and the work ethic gone ballistic. The therapeutic ethos emerged
with a consumer society. Twentieth century industrial capitalism produced the
goods and services intrinsic to such an ethos, as well as the social conditions
such as bureaucratization and urbanization that prompted a search for secu­
lar solace. Self-actualization is a philosophy based on abundance. On the
other hand, survivalism is a defensive ethos based on insecurity and threat -

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1 54 Nike C u l tu re

a response to the erosion of economic security by corporate outsourcing and

downsizing, the increasing gap between rich and poor and the resultant
frustration, hostility, tension and violence which has made for a seemingly
less safe social world. For males, survivalism may be a coping strategy for
slippage in physical prowess as female physicality is defined increasingly
in terms of power and performance; for females, it offers an expression of
seriousness of purpose and sense of empowerment. As the world becomes
increasingly perceived as less civil, the display of physical prowess becomes
a survival strategy. The appearance of physical prowess, whether it serves as
a form of protection or not, allows one to navigate such a world with a dra­
maturgical front of confidence.
Citing concerns about over-commercialization, Nike declined to par­
ticipate as a sponsor for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Nevertheless, in a tactic
akin to "ambush advertising" Nike bought air time for a series of TV ads
during the Olympics on local and regional feeds. This $35 million Nike AIR
campaign highlighting Nike's coterie of Olympic athletes debuted on the X­
Games broadcast on ESPN. Moving its image further away from the senti­
mental look of sport highlights films, this campaign extols intensity of
purpose raised to a higher degree of signification. Considering the mawkish,
syrupy, and sentimental tone that saturated NBC's broadcast coverage of
the Summer Olympiad, as well as the celebratory tone of other Olympic­
themed commercials, Nike's campaign constituted a welcome reprieve from
the mass appeal schmaltz. Nike has always associated itself with dedication
and hard work but in this new era of X-Games that is not enough. Nike chose
to move its look to "the dark side of sport" in which the driven inner-will
overcomes the physiological limitations of the body depicted as screeching
in pain, physically beaten, and oxygen deprived. Intimidation and menace
were additional themes of this campaign: deep in the soul of the world-class
athlete lies the desire to dominate one's competition. Red, with its associa­
tions of heat, blood, and emotional intensity, was the color of choice for this
campaign, bathing the frame in its fiery aura.
Several years earlier, Nike's "Instant Karma" ad portrayed a community
of humanity who share a love of sport, but in these ads the global sports
community fades away, replaced by the raw relationship between spectators
and those who compete to be champions. Champions are those who dis­
play the hyperintensity and the will to destroy their competitors even at
the expense of self-destruction. Of interest in these ads is the fact that the
frenzied crowd and the prying eye of the camera are actually included in the
scene that the ads construct. If Nike's sports philosophy parallels or reflects,
in any way, American cultural change, it speaks to what postmodernists
have called the "end of the social" which can be seen in the mounting pri­
vatized social separation and fortification of cities. HI Nike's 1 996 campaign
was tinged with a Hobbesian aesthetic reflecting a social landscape of "a
war of all against all."

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There a re Many Paths to H eaven 1 55

Blood, sweat, and vomit

The signature commercial of the AIR campaign was a one-minute montage

that opened with two runners crossing a finish line as a white dove flies
into the air. This symbolism of the white dove serves as a prelude to the
dark side. The commercial arranges quick cuts of elite Olympic athletes
(Lewis, Johnson, Torrance, Agassi, Bubka, Hardaway, Barkley, Pippin) in a
montage of performance shots (pole vaulting, running a marathon, sprint­
ing), expressions of intensity (focused stares, mouths shouting, grimaces),
close-ups of Nike shoes, and quick unrecognizable blurs which speed up the
overall flow of the ad. Perhaps the most important aspect of this composition
is the fast-paced music taken from Iggy Pop and the Stooges' 1973 song enti­
tled "Search and Destroy."12 Combined with the jarring editing and off-cen­
ter cinematography the violent music establishes a raw, jagged, heart-racing,
adrenaline pumping aesthetic.
Written in the first person, the song's opening vocal defiantly declares
an anti-middle-class, anti-social soul, 'Tm a streetwalking cheater with a
heart full of napalm. " The lyrics turn the language of American military
technology'S deadliest weapons into metaphors of a self incapable of repress­
ing its anger and rage. In the next line, Iggy makes this declaration more
direct: ''I'm the runaway son of a nuclear A-bomb." The cultural origins of
American proto-punk and its "rage against the machine" can be seen here as Sport as transcendence signified
a reaction against the capitalist excesses of cold-war culture and technology. by the white dove gives way to a
And we must not forget the hostility against the white-collar life built on vision of sport as physical
self-regulation and repression. Years later Pop's recollection of the origins destruction.
of this song are framed by his anti-bourgeois images of a drug-snorting punk
in an English garden.

"Search and Destroy" - The name came from a colwnn heading in a Time
magazine article about the Vietnamese War. I was sitting reading it, snort­
ing big Chinese rocks of heroin under one of those grand English oak
trees in Kensington Garden outside the Kensington Palace on a summer
day in Merrie Olde. I used to go out there to sit and write, wearing my
leather cheetah jacket, leather pants, wraparound shades . . .

Though the song had "nothing to do with [killing] gooks," the lyrics
do refer to the madness of the Vietnam War, fusing its "search and destroy"
metaphor into a generalized accounting of social life in the early 1970s. If
we try to locate the meaning of these lyrics in the context of this Nike ad,
we are bound to be confused. What possible relevance does this have to the
world of Nike athletes? Early on, Iggy and the Stooges aimed their music at
"high school drop-outs, troubled drug kids, kids who were so totally into
music that it wasn't just a part of their lifestyle." Rather, Wieden & Kennedy
selected the music because of the feel it lends to the text: it is violent and

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1 56 Nike C u lture

fast. Consider again the piercing declaration that opens the song: ''I'm a
streetwalking cheater with a heart full of napalm. I'm the runaway son . . . "
This would seem to connote everything that a sports morality detests. But
punctuate it with the insertion of a gutteral scream of athletic tension release
- "Aaaarrrrggghhhhh" - and let the high velocity music and image-flying
context take over, and we have a driven, restless energy - a soul that fits
readily with Nike's self-image of rebellious mavericks driven to excel in their
own ways ( " I am the world's go-gotten boy, the one who searches and
destroys"). Iggy Pop's punk imagery conjures up the hostile, and out-of­
control results of a civilization obsessed with the technology for destruc­
tion. Nike redirects that imagery into a battlefield of track and field
competitions. Spliced into the music, the sound of a crowd's rising crescendo
frames the culture of violence that sometimes surrounds sports in a scene
of crowded stands at a European soccer match with flags waving and red
smoke bombs going off. Spectacular shots convey moments of pain and
intensity - hurdlers and runners fall down, blood splatters from a punch to
a boxer's mouth, a runner vomits. A scene of an athlete being stretchered to
a medivac helicopter testifies to the risks of competing in the arena before the
crowds of frenzied fans. This is no parable about sportsmanship. Indeed,
this is no parable about the transcendence of the human soul, or even of its
immanence. This is about being driven relentlessly by inner demons - but
Sport as war. demons given legitimacy when channeled through sports.
The motivational advertising done by corporate sponsors usually cele­
brates quiet determination and the social support of family, coaches and the
corporate sponsor. Such ads are done by formula: the cute little gymnast
whose plucky determination and long hours of practice pay off in beaming
moments of shared satisfaction by gymnasts, parents and coaches in
McDonald's and Coke ads. Nike moves the signifiers of will, focused inten­
sity, and motivation to another plane altogether. Green vomit, fallen runners
screaming in agony, and blood droplets flying across the frame are spectac­
ular images. On first viewing these images stand out because they are out
of the ordinary. The image of a runner kneeling on a track vomiting is a clear
violation of acceptable commercial imagery. The logic of the spectacle dri­
ves advertising to continually find new styles and new signifiers to differ­
entiate one's signs from the competition. The ante always goes up. Carlton
Fiske doing sit-ups just doesn't do it any more. In the age of accelerated
image flows, memorable signifiers have value when they have the power to
shock audiences out of their complacency and make them take notice.13
Violating bourgeois perceptual codes regarding body fluids gives the ad an
aura of authenticity, a meaning upon which Nike has built its empire. Further,
it differentiates Nike from the field: this ain't no Disney, this ain't no
McDonald's. Indeed, the violence of this drama is accentuated by a smashed
Intensity and determination as camera (an intertextual reference and comment on Canon commercials?) cut
violation of bourgeois codes. between two frames of Andre Agassi making his way through a mob of

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There a re Many Paths to Heaven 1 57

photographers. Of course, Nike is not alone in pushing the frontiers of what

is acceptable in style. Benetton is the most infamous player in this field: con­
structing its sign value by investing it with such code violations as a nun
kissing a priest, an infant still attached to the placenta, a deathbed scene of an
AIDS patient, or two horses copulating. To appellate youth one must be will­
ing to violate codes. Still it is crucial to remember that while Nike uses the
visceral to shock, it does so in the service of bourgeois individualism and
the belief that success is the consequence of simply trying harder.
Nike presents the old adage "no pain no gain" imagistically Pain, how­
ever, is not the signified; Nike doesn't celebrate sado-masochism. Rather, it is
a signifier for intensity, focus, and determination. Pain represents the point at
which the will takes primacy over the body Focused intensity becomes a
monomaniacal obsession to win; pain marks this obsession while at the same
time carrying connotations of the spiritual side of sport contingent on self­
sacrifice. Pain indicates the rite of passage into a spiritual dimension in
which spiritual rewards only come after disciplining or even punishing the
body. This is ascetic Protestantism at its best. Transcendence is no longer a
moment of aesthetic grace but the passing through a moment of unbearable
pain. Pain is the purification rite where suffering attests to purity of motive.
Blood and sweat signify that one deserves to be an Olympic athlete, a
Nike athlete. For Nike, performance is always about the will, about self-affir­
mation, about exceeding limits by refusing boundaries. As noted earlier,
Nike has positioned itself against the boundaries associated with the social
construction of race, class, gender, and age. Such ads speak to a specific
social condition, to a specific social group or to a set of social definitions
that have emerged historically and which operate as artificial barriers to
success, achievement, and performance. There is, however, a universality
to pain. At some point the body breaks down. It can no longer go any farther
or any faster. Certainly anyone who participates in sport knows those limits.
Nike hails all of us to push beyond that point by sheer tenacity of spirit. Of
course, the ultimate athlete is one who dies performing his sport, and not
surprisingly, the "Revolution will not be televised" commercial eulogizes
Hank Gathers and Fred Wilson. Nor is it surprising that many athletes do
break down. What ads usually don't show is the trail of damaged bodies
and psyches of those who didn't make it, despite pushing their bodies
beyond their physical limits. While the success stories are regularly broad­
cast, seldom do they dwell on the psychological and physical casualties of
such a philosophy. However, in "Search and Destroy" we see the carnage
and the casualties of pushing physical competition to its outer limits.

Trial by pain
"lfyou don't lose consciousness at
Cumulatively, the Nike ads shown during the 1996 Olympics presented a the end, you could have run
primer of pithy proverbs or maxims. One ad featured a blurred slow motion faster. "

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1 58 Nike C u lture

close-up of Jackie Joyner-Kersee sprinting. She runs into focus, her head
canted back, eyes closed, the hollows of her cheeks rising and falling in slow
motion, a grimace of pain covering her face. She is rendered as a portrait of
determination. A sober voice-over by actor Willem Defoe frames the scene:
"If you don't lose consciousness at the end, you could have run faster." The
screen turns bright red with FASTER lettered across it. A close-up of Joyner­
Kersee fades into a red frame named by the swoosh and a pulsating AIR
"Some people quit when thl?lj reach beneath it. Passing through the threshold of intense pain indicates the level
their threshold of pain, some
of one's determination. If there is no pain, no adversity, if an athlete doesn't
dOI1't. "
lose consciousness then she hasn't pushed hard enough. The greatest sin an
athlete can commit is wasted potential. This commercial suggests we can
never be satisfied with less than the ultimate performance. And, since the
ultimate is not fixed, one can never be satisfied. This theme of pushing one­
self to surpass the experience of pain recurs throughout this series of ads.
Another ad juxtaposed a slow-motion scene of a swimmer exploding out
of the water, against the soundtrack of a slow motion roar of arctic wind
mixed with wind chimes, as the voice-over flatly beheld, "Some people quit
when they reach their threshold of pain, some don't." As the swimmer
strains for his next breath, he is framed by water droplets filmed like frozen
j agged ice pellets that fade to red. The ascetic aesthetic itself signifies the
barriers that must be broken to succeed. Here one realizes oneself by over­
coming one's own nature, rather than finding oneself by becoming one with
nature, as in the ACe campaign.

No mercy

A frequently run ad in the series featured the world record-holding sprinter,

"There are two sides to a sprinter.
The side that wal1ts to crush his and star of the 1996 Olympic games, Michael Johnson. The opening shot
opponel1ts al1d leave them blue and symmetrically composed Johnson poised on the starting blocks, staring
lifeless by the side of the track, intensely, straight-ahead, into the camera. If this is Nike's aesthetic of con­
[pause 1 and the other, darker, centration and purpose, it is also their aesthetic of intimidation. Johnson's
side. " The aesthetic ofil1tensity
fierce eyes dominate the frame. When joined to the dark and foreboding
mixes the standardized codes of
electronic music, Johnson's intensity and focus appear almost excessively
modeling with the gestures of the
athlete. obsessive. The voice-over slowly draws out the meaning of this look. The
dramatic pause reinforces the ominous tone of a "darker side." As these last
words are spoken, the camera drifts, almost David Lynch-like, into the sur­
face of the track itself before fading to red with the swoosh and AIR printed
below. Forget the humanist ideologies of sport so freely repeated during the
Olympiad - that we are all brothers and sisters bound together by an ethic of
sportsmanship - instead, these ads speak to the obsessive dedication to dom­
ination. Nike does not confine this warrior mentality to male athletes. Another
commercial features Mia Hamm, Nike's female soccer celebrity, shown
"There's a time and a placefor
mercy. And it isn't here and it fiercely diving through the air to head the ball. There are no reference points,
isn't 110w. " and no ground, only Hamm soaring in slow motion through a snowstorm

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T h e re a re Man y Paths to H eaven 1 59

signifying the extent of her determination and grittiness. Defoe's voice omi­
nously declares her purpose: "There's a time and a place for mercy. And it
isn't here and it isn't now. "
Yet another Nike ad consisted of extreme close-ups of Nike's Dream
Team basketball players - John Stockton, Penny Hardaway, Scottie Pippin,
David Robinson, Charles Barkley, Gary Payton, and Reggie Miller. Their
expressions mimic the boxer's practice of staring down an opponent, their
faces unsmiling masks marked by menacing and unflinching looks. To break
eye contact demonstrates weakness. If you can't stare down your opponent,
if you blink, you don't have the will necessary to win. Towards the end of
this collage of stares the voice-over methodically intones " Anyone, any­ "Anyone, anywhere, anytime. "
Never mind playingforfun orfor
where, anytime. " Ironically, the US Olympic basketball team so overmatches
the love of the game orfor a deep
their opponents that the last thing one expects is intensity. Olympic basket­
sense of comradeship. Nope, in
ball is about marketing, not about competition. In the 1992 Barcelona these ads sport is serious business.
Olympic Games, the real battle took place over whether Nike athletes would Even baby1aced Reggie Miller is
wear Reebok jackets to accept the medals. given a dark side.

Win at all costs

During the Summer Games in Atlanta, Nike put up billboards around the
city. One of the most notable posters featured the message, "If you're not
there to win, you're a tourist." In the television series of ads, Andre Agassi,
wearing a black hood, moves in extra-slow motion through a phalanx of
photographers, like a boxer preparing to enter the ring. The soundtrack com­
posed of discordant sounds of slashing, static and pounding, framed this
as a portrait of intense concentration impervious to any distraction. Images
of Agassi playing in a match are edited into this scene; perhaps, they are his "If you're not there to win, you're a
mental images which now focus his attention. Finally, the voice-over intones, tourist. "
"If you're not there to win, you're a tourist." The ideology of sport has shifted
direction with this derisive insult. Forget that saccharine nonsense about
"playing for the love of sport," and hail the tunnel vision obsessed with
winning, period.
These ads are not simply about winning, they are about the look of
winners. Interpreting an ad like this is partly dependent on our intertextual
knowledge of Agassi as a celebrity athlete. Anyone can be a tourist: a tourist
is a spectator, a consumer, while only the especially dedicated will become
champions. And yet, by emphasizing the look of winners - of power, success,
and focused obsession - these ads create only the illusion of the depth of
soul and subjectivity, instead reducing the athlete's look to a caricature of
determination. Richard Sennett has written that the Puritan ethic has been
translated into a narcissistic ethos in modem times.14 The look of intensity
and the ascetic aura that suffuses and defines these displays of cold desire
can be read as making "a statement to oneself, and to others, about what
kind of person one is."

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1 60 Nike C u ltu re

Discipline or liberation?

But there is yet another way o f making sense o f these ads. Michel Foucault
offered an approach that reversed standard interpretations of history.
Consider the familiar interpretations of the Enlightenment that associate sci­
ence and reason with progress and human liberation. Foucault, however,
argued that science and reason had less to do with freedom than the emer­
gence of a new form of social control, disciplinary power. According to

Heavenly Trails

These two Nike commercials featuring mountain biking offer In stark contrast is a 1996 ACG mountain bike commercial
thoroughly different philosophies. One shows a lone female that opens with a mortised black and white cartoon character. As
mountain bike racer pushing the envelope, oblivious to the risk he chases an umbrella across the screen he states, "HeJj, try this
of serious injury to skull, knees, ribs, liver or spleen. All that for a mantra. I like the rain. I like the rain. I want it to rain. "
matters is winning the race. Jarring fast-paced music and a The camera follows a group of mountain bikers i n a heavy down­
jumpy camera follow the mountain biker down a hill. Mixing off pour. As theJj slush through puddles one biker goes over his han­
center closeups of the biker's body and face with the jumpy cam­ dle bars and lands face first in the mud. His mud-covered
era's subjective shots of the bike bouncing off the rocky winding grinningface tells us that not only is he not hurt but he takes
trail give the viewer a sense of being on the bike itself The great pleasure in this moment. To an acoustic guitar background
biker's androgynous face is splashed with mud as she goes the narrator's upbeat voice completes the mantra, "I want to
through a puddle. Willem Defoe narrates, "You can protect your wallow in the mud and slop with reckless abandon. And when I
eyes and your skull and your ribs and your knees and your liver -
die, I want to say, 'I did carpe the diem no matter how cold,
and your spleen. Or you can protect your lead. " The word how wet, and how nasty the diem was.'" An animated umbrella
SPLEEN appears on the screen. The trail turns into a fast mov­ rolls across theframe leaving behind a script font of "Just do it. "
ing blur as the scene fades to a red background and a Nike Nike mixes humor with the language of Eastern religion
swoosh. Nike hails us to push our bodies to the limit. To win, (mantra) with a signifier ofphilosophy (carpe diem) to hail its
fear of injury must be overcome. This is an X-Games' mentality perceived ACG market niche.
put into the Nike philosophy. Extreme sports are only now
being turned into competitive ones to make them marketable.

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There a re Many Paths to H eaven 1 61

Foucault, Western history has been a process of refining the technology of the
body to exact greater social control, to produce what he called the "docile
body": "a body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and
improved. "15 Discipline replaced punishment not because it was more
humane but because it was more efficient. Viewed this way, these images
of athletes struggling through pain represent not simply images of freedom
and achievement, but images of social control. Withstanding pain becomes
an indicator of discipline. Leaming to handle pain takes place within a train­
ing regimen. Foucault began his analysis of the political technology of dis­
cipline with the soldier, examining how the apparatus of discipline makes
him both powerful and obedient. Subsequently, a comparable approach to
regimen, technique, and strategy were brought to bear in the rationalized
workplace. These same practices have today thoroughly penetrated athletics.
What does it mean to be an Olympic caliber athlete? What regimens does
one have to give oneself up to - diet, training, sleeping, sexual abstinence? To
be an athlete is to give oneself up to social discipline and its morality. The
seemingly heroic nature of this moment of transcendence could be a moment
of extended social control in which the individual demonstrates he/she is
willing to sacrifice his/her body for the good of the society or the corporation "Sandpits assume there is a limit to
that sponsors the team. how far a human being can leap"

RE-ENCHANTING A DISENCHANTED WORLD

Traditionally, religion, the festival, mantras and chants, hallucinatory drug

use, and dance have all been used to facilitate entry into socially transcendent
states of being. Many of these practices have disappeared as social and eco­
nomic life became increasingly subject to rationalization. While the mystery
of sport is systematically disassembled amid the computerized readings at
the US Olympic training centers, Nike advertising constructs sports not as
a rationalized activity, but as a channel to an altered state of consciousness.
Max Weber spoke of the "disenchantment of the world" as the flip side
of the continuous rationalization of social life. 16 Capitalism and science dis­
placed religion, but Weber also observed that the Judeo-Christian tradition
itself had contributed to this process by eliminating magic and promoting
universal deities. Sociologists like Jacques Ellul and George Ritzer have
applied Weber's theory to describe a world in which spontaneity, idiosyn­
crasy, and superstition have been erased in favor of efficiency, predictability,
and replicability. Trained experts supplant the amateur, while mastery and
control mean developing consistent techniques, strategies, rules, and pro­
cedures. The Enlightenment held out the promise that scientific knowledge
could unlock the mysteries of the world, giving humans the means to pur­
posefully control their lifeworld. However, Weber suggested that in the well­
rationalized social organization, the freedom promised by the discourses of

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1 62 Nike C u lture

modernity vanishes, replaced by an "iron cage" of rules, regulations, and

bureaucratic codes. We become cogs, automatons, or burnt-out bureaucrats
who routinely perform repetitive tasks without a sense of purpose. Ellul
viewed the process of rationalization as technique, which, driven by its own
imperative, spreads outside the control of human agency. For Ellul, no life
sphere is immune. For example, technique in the guise of counseling psy­
chology invades our most intimate moments - child rearing, family rela­
tionships, sexuality. Imagination, spontaneity, and even the magical moments
of love relationships are all subject to rationalization and packaging. In The
McDonaldization of Society, Ritzer uses McDonald's as an exemplar of ratio­
nalization applied to both the workplace and consumption. In showing how
McDonald's translated its concerns about efficiency, predictability, calcula­
bility, and control into routine practices, Ritzer discloses how an extraordi­
nary range of social activities become subject to the means- ends calculus of
rationalizationY
When pitted against an excessively rationalized world, sports discourse
promises an alternative way of being. At times transcendent, at times thera­
peutic, and at times ascetic, sports narratives have the capacity for reinjecting
meaning and enchantment into the modern world. Sport is hyped on the
promise of being a site for magical moments in the same way that "human
interest" stories are compelling because emotions eclipse technique. There is
historical irony in this insofar as sport has been a primary site for the
encroachment of rationalization over the last century. Recall, for example,
that the early proponent of rationalizing the labor process, Frederick Winslow
Taylor, actually began his approach by breaking down golf swings into grid­
ded and mathematicized analyses. And yet, as we approach the millennium
we perceive an increased reliance on sports discourses to reinstill not only the
spiritual into the social, but meaning and enchantment into what is often
constructed as a cynical epoch.

"There are yet places that speak to our souls "

When addressing the middle class, Nike strikes a philosophical pose that
appears deeply connected to American transcendentalism. Locating freedom,
individuality, and transcendence outside the limits of socially organized time
and space, Nike positions the social as constraining. Nike's ACe campaign
looks to Nature as a therapeutic space. These ads address a desire to escape
bureaucratized and managed spaces. As the textual descendants of American
transcendentalism - particularly Emerson and Thoreau - these ads locate
self-fulfillment in one's relationship to nature. When the men's basketball
shoe market flattened out in 1993, the sporting goods industry discovered
the outdoor recreation market. To address this new market, Nike boosted its
outdoor shoes "to 78 styles, from fewer than two dozen styles" in 1992. '
Nike s
outdoor manager defined the problem that confronted their marketing.

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There a re Man y Paths to H eaven 1 63

We're going to have to change the formula of putting shoes on athletes.

This is not like basketball, tennis or football where you can use the athlete
hero as a spokesman. That just doesn't speak to this category. 18

What would speak to this category and its audience? Nike's ACe shoe
campaign chose to evoke a quasi-mystical spiritual sensibility organized
around a love of nature. The ACe campaign taps into an environmentalist
ethic convivial to middle class baby-boomers and post-boomers, drawing
loosely on the tradition of American transcendentalism in its construction
of the relationship between nature and the bourgeoisie.
A technology and commodity-driven civilization leaves less room for
the spiritual dimension. The sacred, Emile Durkheim reminded us, is always
rooted in the social, even more so, in a secular world. Spirituality in Nike's
world has little to do with formal religion, but with a broadly humanist meta­
physics about a universal relationship between the self and a force greater
than the self. Hence in their "Instant Karma" ad Nike paid homage to what
Durkheim called the "cult of the individual" by addressing a spiritual sen­
sibility of universal individual immanence, while the ACe campaign locates
spirituality in the relationship between Nature and the individual soul.
Given Nike's irreverent style of advertising, it may seem curious that
a 1995 ACe ad campaign opened with an admonition against the cynical
drift that has become the dominant motif in 1990s pop culture.

Do not become a cynic.

That is a sure sign of physical and spiritual atrophy.
For those of you who would seek adventure, take heart.
There are yet places that speak to our souls. In this ACe campaign Nike
rekindles the philosophy of
And to the dim-eyed know-it-alls they will say "I have a surprise for you."
American Transcendentalism.
Experience in Nature revitalizes
I n an age of nearly universal commodification, cynicism becomes seductive both the body and the soul.
because it buffers disappointment. But the cynical voice and the snide, arro­
gant identity of been-there, done-that has so saturated the marketplace that
a backlash was inevitable. Because the ACe line of shoes has nothing to do
with the inner city, Nike entered the competition in this outdoors market
niche by appealing to a transcendent vision of nature and personal identity.
Escape the urban media culture dominated by "physical and spiritual atro­
phy." For those who seek uncooked and unmediated experiences - adventure
- "there are yet places that speak to our souls." And that of course, is what
many yearn to have - something that speaks to their souls, that reminds
them even that they have souls. A second ACe ad pursues this theme:

Monuments are a hoax,

a conspiracy designed by bureaucrats and construction companies
to draw you awayfrom the important places,

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1 64 Nike C u l tu re

the ones found off the roads, atop the mountains, amidst the rivers
and mostly, by chance.
They are not marked by placards and statues
but by epiphanous moments that give you the sense that no one,
including yourself may everfind this place again.

Just do it.
Using a spectacular image of
nature Nike positions itself and us
Again the ACe campaign hails middle class youth who scorn the beaten
against the spectacle of Nature.
path that has been already commodified or organized by the logic of admin­
istrative rationality. This is the search for pristine Nature, unpolluted by
efforts to commercialize it into pre-constituted photo opportunities and sou­
venirs. Nike depicts a Nature breathtaking in its beauty and serenity, a Nature
that still offers you a place in which to discover and realize yourself. Here
Nike plays to a deep antipathy towards the administered society, offering a
critique of national parks as administered spaces. In contrast to the monu­
mentalism of Mt Rushmore or the iconography of Yellowstone geysers, Nike
beckons viewers to seek out unregulated spaces and deep, unstructured
experiences that only pure and wondrous Nature can provide. Nike endorses
a place where there is no naming of Nature, "no placards and statues" to
mark spaces that offer a pre-constituted vacation experience. Rather, Nike
endorses the "epiphanous moments" that can never be repeated. "Live on
your own time and according to your own choices in an unmarked wilder­
ness, deep in the heart of nature and maybe, just maybe, you will experi­
ence your true self." The text rouses visions of freedom, as well as the
bourgeois conceit of self-importance based on knowing a special, untouched
place that others don't know about. But the choice of the word "epiphanous"
conveys more than this - it stresses a spiritual connection. Recall that
Epiphany originally referred to the Christian festival celebrating the birth
of Jesus. Its secularized meaning - the meaning referred to in this Nike ad -
comes to us via James Joyce who used the concept to grasp moments of
sudden revelation and insight in which "the soul of the commonest
object . . . seems to us radiant."
In the tradition of American transcendentalism, Nike constructs Nature
as an uncorrupted space in which authentic self-fulfillment may be attained.
Natural spaces allow for experiences that can never be reproduced nor
repeated. Nike presents this world as an alternative to the managed, and
increasingly rationalized, worlds of tourism. The ad addresses the progres­
sive disenchantment of the world, extended now from our cities and our
work back into the world of nature. It speaks to our sense of personal spiri­
tuality by endorsing the re-enchantment of nature - so that the charm and
magic of unfiltered nature can mix with our souls. Indeed, the nature that is
depicted in the ACe campaign is nature spiritualized, nature infused by the
vital animating force that we think of as spirit.

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There are Man y Paths to Heaven 1 65

The ACG ads rely on natural, sonorous, melodic, non-amplified music

that connotes a space of spiritual simplicity. The prior ACG ad semiotically
draws on a distinctly Indian musical tonal quality to signify harmonious,
ethereal, and non-western, relations between humans and nature. So too, in
1990, Nike appropriated John Lennon's song "Instant Karma" for their Air
Huarache shoe line in order to signify "self-improvement: making yourself
better . . . "19 Nike's "Instant Karma" ad constructed a sense of performance
as a flow experience that was an end in itself, acting without self-con­
sciousness and without hesitation. Nike's version of 'Instant Karma' appealed
to a recognition of the inner self in relation to species-being. But, whereas
Marx stressed labor as the fundamental act through which humans are capa­
ble of recognizing our selves in our connectedness, Nike locates this potential
in the activity of athletic play. While the camera work aestheticized and cele­
brated the inner call to play itself, Lennon's lyrics seem to hitch personal
transcendence to a universal spirit that binds us all. Joined to the camera
work, the song's refrain, "We all shine on," reframed the playground bas­
ketball court as a space where we can experience the immanence of our own
soul in relation to the grandeur about us.

The twilight zone of commodity theology

Cynics and critics (have the two become synonymous?) would be quick to
point out that any mention of Nike in relation to religion must include the
way that Nike has constructed for itself - at
NIKETOWN and in its ads -
shrines to itself. And to be sure, both NIKETOWN and Nike ads are prime
sites of postmodern culture. A Nike ad featuring Michael Jordan that aired
during the Christmas shopping season of 1996 provides an excellent textual
opportunity for exploring the aesthetics of religion as a signifier. We con­
clude our exploration of themes of spirituality with this Nike ad that reads as
a homage to Jordan as the pinnacle of commodity culture.
We have strung together a series of stills lifted from the commercial to
provide a flavor of the visual aesthetic style. In this ad, the essential chan­
nels of communication are the music and the photographic style. There is
no voice-over, neither is there any mention of Nike, except one fleeting shot
of the swoosh on Jordan's shoe. Perhaps, the most important thing to be
observed about this commercial is what is absent. There is no Nike swoosh at
ad's end. Instead, the ad ends with the red "Jumpman" icon representing
Jordan in flight towards a dunk. This ad appeared at roughly the same
time that a cologne bearing Jordan's likeness and name was being launched
with a wave of advertising. In spite of this, and the fact that Jordan's
celebrity value has been diluted by Gatorade, Hanes, and McDonald's ads,
Nike was confident viewers would recognize this as an Air Jordan
commercial, as a Nike ad, because Jordan and Nike "form a single unified
logo-refrain. "20

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1 66 Nike C u lture

Music and style of photography connote an ethereal and liminal space

- a kind of twilight zone. The structure of the commercial is disjointed in
that it superimposes adjoining frames, leaves afterimages, changes speed
within shots (fast to slow motion), and overexposes and tints parts of the
frame so that greens, reds, yellows, and blue are exaggerated. The ad visually
differentiates itself from other commercials by its foregrounding of style and
color, using photographic technique to disturb the ontological landscape.
The most jarring violation concerns the flow of time. Jordan's nickname of
"Air" refers to his extraordinary ability to jump and hang aloft on his moves
to the basket. While in previous commercials this was expressed by having
him visually transcend the natural limits of space, this ad depicts the same
meaning in terms of the fourth dimension, time. The commercial freezes
and unfreezes time, leaving the video apparition of Jordan alternately frozen
in time and moving faster than film time so that he leaves image trails, while
the spectators appear in still frame or slow motion as if suspended in time.
The ad opens with an eerily tinted shot of the Bulls playing against the
Los Angeles Lakers. Jordan moves to receive the ball and upon doing so the
ad shifts into another time zone. With Jordan poised to drive past a defender
to the basket, the scene cuts to a row of trance-like runners on treadmill
machines at an exercise club mesmerized by Jordan's performance on a tele­
vision monitor. The ad oscillates back and forth between Jordan's drive to the
basket and spectators momentarily suspended in time. A man stands in the
midst of shaving, transfixed by Jordan on the television screen, while behind
him the bathroom sink overflows in slow motion. In the smooth disconti­
nuity of cross-cutting, Jordan's spin move foregrounds the number 23 on
his shoe for a split-second, giving way to a scene of a boy and his mother,
captivated by Jordan's TV image, while a dog, blurred in the background,
shakes water out if its coat. A small boy stares up at a television through a
store window, while a slightly older boy stands watching a television in a
garage as his bike falls over - in super slow motion - in the driveway. Like
the scene of the sink overflowing this scene signifies the suspension of time
as Jordan completes his move and elevates for his shot. Two older men in the
crowd look on spellbound, their mouths agape, while two young boys look
up in awe and wonder. When Jordan finishes his dunk, he is replaced by
the red Jordan-in-flight logo on the screen, punctuating the dunk, and the
experience.
As we have observed, Nike has always toyed with the spectacle by
being self-reflexive about the nature of commercialization. On the one hand,
Nike parodies the spectacle of crass commercialism and false sentimental­
ism, even attacking the media marketing circus of hype for corrupting the
essence of sport (e.g., Nike's criticism of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games as
overcommercialized). Its ads have contrasted the love of the game with the
shallowness of the spectacle, drawing an equivalency between ordinary ath­
letes and its stable of superstars. Nevertheless, despite its reflexivity regard-

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There a re Man y Paths to Heaven 1 67

ing the spectacle and its democratic stance concerning sports, Nike has built
its sign value on hero worship, or on the gap between the everyday and the
spectacular. And, for Nike, Jordan has been the heart of the spectacle: in this
ad, Jordan has the capacity to suspend time in the lives of spectators engaged
in everyday life. The ad illustrates in an eerie way Guy Debord's observation
that "the spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among
people, mediated by images."21
Spiritual overtones in the ad stem entirely from the signifier of the
choirboy's voice. Sweet and angelic, the child's voice suggests an aura of
reverence and serenity. Along with the photography, the choirboy's voice
frames Jordan with an aura that could be described as god-like. Able to tran­
scend time and space, he is on another plane than mere mortals. The viewer's
position is clear. All we can do is gaze in awe. The commercial reduces every­
day life to the routine and the commonplace. When slow motion is used to
show Jordan, it celebrates his physicality, calling attention to how lightning
quick he is. When used to portray everyday life, it slows down our routines,
emphasizing their mundane character and flow. In the spectacle, we look
to supermen to amaze us, to take us out of our daily routines. The ethereal
slow motion places us in another dimension where we can, at least momen­
tarily, disappear outside everyday life in the modern world. W.F. Haug
coined the phrase "commodity aesthetics" to describe the lure of images
associated with commodities. Haug wrote about the "fascination of aesthetic
images" in which "the beautiful image becomes completely disembodied
and drifts unencumbered like a multicolored spirit of the commodity into
every household."22 The spectator 's fascination with such commodity aes­
thetics has been built largely on the pleasure of the gaze.
The aura of spirituality and the spectator's gaze, nominally opposites,
have been fused together. Precisely by means of its aesthetic style, Nike has
elevated (pun intended) the floating signifier of Jordan (pun intended) into
something that appears transcendent. It comes as no surprise to anyone who
follows pop culture that, to invert Marx's famous line, "all that is sacred
melts into Air."23 And yet, here is Jordan, presented as the commodity deity
of the moment, while also confirming Guy Debord's observation that "The
spectacle is the existing order 's uninterrupted discourse about itself, its
laudatory monologue."24 The higher Nike elevates Jordan, the higher it ele­
vates itself. The higher his sign value, the higher the exchange value of com­
modities branded by Nike logos. And, it is indeed worth reminding ourselves
that the Jordan Flight icon has signified the top of Nike's line. No wonder
lines of kids waited on Sunday morning at a local mall for the new Air
Jordan shoes to just arrive.

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1 68 Nike C u lture

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Stewart Hoo\'er, " 1 996 Gerbner Lecture, 'Media and Religion'," Allllcllberg Newslink
(Annenberg School of Communication), 1 996, p. 1 5 .
2. Michel d e Certeau, Tllc Practice of El'crydmj Life (University of California Press, Berkeley,
CA, 1984), p. 1 78.
3. Randy Gragg, "Bow down at the altar of retail," Tile Oregoniall, December 15 1996,
pp. Tl , T2.
4. Wade Clark Roof, "The baby boom's search for God," A lllerican DClllograpllics, 1 4,
December 1992, pp. 50-1 .
5. Max Weber, Tile Proleslalll Eillic alld Ille Spiril of CapilalisllI, h'anslated by Talcott Parsons
(Charles Scribner 's Sons, New York, 1958).
6. T j. Jackson Lears, Fables of Ablllldallce:A ClIllllral Hislorlj of Adverlising in Allierica
(Basic Books, New York, 1 994), p. 47.
7. Colin Campbell maintains that by the early nineteenth century, Puritans had evolved
"an intensely personal subjective experience" to gauge the authenticity of their faith,"
in Tile ROlllalllic Eillic alld Illc Spiril ofModcm COllsllmpliol1 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1987).
8. Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M . Sullivan, Ann Swid ler, and Steven M.
Tipton, Habils of Ille Henri: Individllalism alld COl1l1l1itlllenl ill Alliericnll Life (Harper, New
York, 1 985). See also Richard Fox and jackson Lears (eds), Tile ClIllllre Of COliS11111plioI I :
Crilical EssaIjs ill Ailiericall Hislory, 1 880-1 980 (Pantheon, New York, 1983), pp. 3-38.
9. john Gillis, A World af Tlleir OWII Makillg: Mylll, Rilual, and Ihc Qlleslfor Falllillj Vailles
(Basic Books, New York, 1 996), p. 84.
1 0. Susan Willis, A Prilllerfor Daily Life (Rou tledge, London, 1991 ), p. 69.
1 1 . See Mike Davis, Cily of Qual' I: ( Verso, New York, 1990).
1 2. Iggy Pop and the Stooges, l"ail' Pml'cr, 1973.
1 3. Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Sigll Wars (Guilford Publications, New York,
1 996), p. 1 66.
14. Richard Sennett, Tllc Fall of Pllblic Mall: all lilt' Social Psychology af Capilatisl1I (Vintage,
New York, 1 978), p . 335.
15. Michel Foucault, Disciplille alld Pllllisll: Tile Birtll of Ille Prison (Vintage, New York,
1 979), p. 1 36.
1 6. Max Weber, Till' Pmlestnllt Etllie
17. Jacques Ellul, The Tecill/Ologica/ Sociell/ (Vintage, New York, 1 964); George Ri tzer, Tile
McDollaldi:atioll of Society: All /1Il'estigatioll illto tile Cllangillg Cllaracter of COl1tclllpomn;
Social Lit,' (Pine Forge, Newbury Park, CA, 1993).
18. Cited in jerry Schwartz, "In shoes, the great outdoors beckons," Tile New York Times,
February 13 1 994, section 3, p. 6.
19. Nina Ba ker, " N i ke's ready to go all out to promote latest sneaker," Tile Oregonian,
March 1 4 1 992, p. B 1 .
20. Susan Will is, A Prilller "" Daily Life ( Routledge, London, 1991 ), p . 1 1 3; emphasis added.
21. Guy Debord, Sociell/ of tile Spectacle (Red & Black, Detroit, 1977), p. 4.
22. Wo lfgang Fritz H aug, Critiqlle of COllllllOditlj Aesilletics: Appearallce, Sexualitlj alld
Adl'ertisillg ill Capitalist Society ( University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1986),
pp. 45, 50.
23. The original line from th e Mall ifi .s t.. of tile Collllllllllist Partlj is found in a section dis­
cussing how capitalism necessitates an end to traditionalism and the inauguration of
an era of constant change: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned. "
(Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Tile COllllllllllist Manifesto (International Publishers,
New York, 1 992), p. 35.
24. Debord, Society of tile Spectacle, p. 24.

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8.
IIJUST DO IT," BUT NOT
ON MY PLANET

FROM CULTURAL ICON TO SYMBOLIC CAPITAL

Think of the Nike swoosh like a piggy bank. Every time you watch a Nike ad
that gives you viewing pleasure, or provides a moment of identification, or
that encourages you to think of Nike as committed to something broader
than its own self-interest, then you deposit a little bit of value (almost like
dropping a coin in the piggy bank) into the sign. In our estimation, the Nike
swoosh has become swollen with this kind of accumulated value to the extent
that Nike no longer needs to name itself, but can merely show the swoosh
symbol to brand and set apart the world of Nike and its imagery. "Nike's
marketing formula: integrate the swoosh into the cultural fabric of sports and
harness its emotional power. The formula has proven successful, as Nike's
growth has coincided with the growth in sports."J Relying on the swoosh to
brand its business has paid off handsomely in an annual growth rate of
roughly 40% during the mid 1990s.
We have suggested that there is more than just a passing relationship
between the creation of the swoosh as a universal cultural icon and the expan­
sion of Nike's economic capital. Nike is representative of a new stage of cap­
italist institutions rooted in the kinds of cultural economies we have been
observing. Global and transnational capitalism has brought with it indus­
tries where commodities are themselves symbols 2 No firm better fits this
model than Nike, whose symbolic capital has acquired a huge global reach.
The primary vehicle through which Nike has built its cultural icon and
its symbolic capital has been its advertising and sports marketing. What sets
Nike advertising apart from others at present? In the world of television's
rapid fire movement from image to image, consistent, coherent philosophies
have eroded or fractured into the scattered cultural debris of images and
styles. What separates Nike from its competitors is that it has endowed its
swoosh symbol with the appearance that it stands for a philosophy of life.

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1 70 Nike C u lture

Nike has achieved its brand preeminence in several broad stages. First,
Nike established itself as equivalent to sports and sports culture. Nike has
long since entrenched itself as being dedicated and committed to athletic
excellence. Next Nike adopted a self-mocking attitude toward its own adver­
tising. Nike then capitalized on the trust built up to raise a broad range of
social issues like the crisis of inner-city youth that advertisers normally
avoid. With Nike's dominance in US markets, the next push (it has already
W/lift' Nike appelw; to sct itself begun) involves a global advertising strategy, which in the words of Liz
a/Jout tllc fml/ by 1I0t IllCll tiollillg Dolan, Nike's former brand manager, will be based both on "a global point of
or lIIakillg referellccs to Reebok ill
view" along with "a country-by-country plan to make the brand part of the
its ad,'crtisillg, Nike still skill­
cultural fabric.'"
flllll/ lll1dmllilles Reebok SPOII­
sored e('ellts. Accordillg to a l l In the US, the meaning of the swoosh stands out because so many of
article ill Ad" ertising Age, Nike Nike's ads acknowledge the underlying conditions of commodity relations in
IIsed IlIlIbllSl1 I1duertisillg to an often dehumanized world. Rather than repress these experiences as do the
illellide tlte swoosh ill a vast majority of ads, Nike's sports marketing rejuvenated a middle class
Illaratitoll spollsoml /,y Reebok
motivational discourse at a time when other such discourses have been dis­
ill 5011 til Africa:
credited by the relentless hype and cynicism of television. Nike advertising
"Last year ill SOlltlt Aji-ica, Nike,
a IlOlIspOlIsor of tilt' COlllrades has engaged the cultural contradictions of contemporary life in such a way
Maratitoll. captllred sOllie of tltc that it appears to have a complex corporate personality that possesses greater
plI/JIicity slirrol i l ldillg tll(, COlilpe­ authenticity than its rivals.
titioll by offerillg to dOllate 55 to
For almost a decade, Nike competed with its primary rival, Reebok, in
tlte lIatiollal tealll of disabled otll­
what we call sign wars.� Sign wars take place between marketers as they
Ictes .f£lI· enell nil I 11<'1' ll'ltO crossed
tilc fillislt lille ,uitlt tile Nike try to top rival brand images but with relatively little mention of actual prod­
swoosh paill ted Oll ilis or Iterface. uct benefits. With Wieden & Kennedy at the helm, Nike has thus far won its
Tltc IlI0mtllOl I . all ( / l l I l lIaI S9-kiI0- sign war battles with Reebok, although Reebok continues to counterattack.
Illeter mcefrolll Ollrball to
Indeed, with their "Planet Reebok" campaign, Reebok sought to counter Nike
Pietenllarit:/Jllrg, tuns spollsored
by constructing its own imagery of a life-world space animated by a Reebok
vy Rel'vok. Beron' tltis year's
philosophy. Though this campaign subsequently collapsed, Reebok even
IlIaratllOlI ill /III1C, Nike tried
agaill, selldillg tlte swoosh lIasal mimicked Nike by dispensing with their name proper and using only their
strips (said to ellital lce atllietes' vector icon to sign their ads. The athletic shoe market is no longer a two
a/Jility to /Jrentlte) to all race brand race. Nike's market share has risen to 43%, while Reebok has dropped
elltrallts. A tllrcat ofdisqllolifica­
back to 17% and Adidas has risen to challenge for significant market share.
tiOll, /w,((l('z'cr, ({lI1� l'110Ilg!l to di>­
Given the swoosh's current dominance, Nike can anticipate further sign war
cOllmge a 1 1.11 f/'(l II I ,uenrillg tile
strips. '" attacks from rivals who will try to leverage the value of the swoosh to their
own advantage. Reebok's recent swipe at the successful Nike women's ad "If
*'U"U'IfiitM'1M" you let me play," is illustrative: "we are not waiting for anyone to let us play."
Another recent instance of a sign war attack appeared at the end of a
Shaquille O'Neal ad for Reebok when an imitation of Nike's Little Penny pup­
pet appears, wanting to join "Planet Reebok." In the next instant, Shaq "inad­
vertently" [wink-wink] elbows the puppet out of the picture . This is a sign
wars attack pure and simple.
Reebok has not competed well against Nike in the area of authenticity. In
the summer of 1997, the New York Times quoted Ruth Davis, a global product
director for Reebok who seeks trendy celebrities to wear her shoes "and show

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not o n My Pla net 1 71

up in the gossip rags." Her goal at the time was to put the recording sex
goddesses of the moment, the Spice Girls, in Reebok shoes." When we inter­
viewed a Nike executive a few weeks later, we mentioned Reebok's pursuit
of the Spice Girls. She responded by pretending to clutch her throat and
making a gagging gesture. Her reaction spoke not just about Reebok, but
about the way that Nike envisions its own corporate identity and mission. To
the Nike executive, the Spice Girls signified pure glamour, not authenticity.
Nike defines itself, first and foremost, as a company that designs and markets
the best products for athletes. Nike defines itself as the company able to tap
the authenticity of sport. Here is Dan Wieden himself, reflecting upon the
matter of authenticity in the body of advertising work his firm has done for
Nike.

The people at Nike taught my partner, David Kennedy, and me how to

advertise - and how not to advertise. Back in 1980, when David and I
first started to work on the account, Nike made it very clear that they
hated advertising. They had developed close relationships with athletes,
and they didn't want to talk to them in any phony or manipulative way.
They were obsessed with authenticity, in terms of both the product and
the communication. And they had a sense of what was cool.
Those attitudes have guided all of Nike's advertising. We try to
make honest contact with the consumer, to share something that is very
hip and very inside. We don't translate the inside jokes because we figure
it's OK if the people who are faddish don't understand. Either you get it or
you don't. It's more important for us to be true to the athletes by talking to
them in a way that respects their intelligence, time, and knowledge of
sports.;

THE IMAGE OF PHILOSOPHY OR THE

PHILOSOPHY OF IMAGE?

Many sociologists and anthropologists who study commodity culture have

observed that it tends to anesthetize civic discourse and impoverish public
space. Until recently we would have agreed with this. However, the growing
wave of protests against Nike starting in 1996 regarding treatment of third
world laborers seems to have shifted matters around. Might it be possible,
that under shifting cultural circumstances, commercial television, sports,
and advertising can actually contribute to a public sphere of discourse?
During our interview with Liz Dolan in the summer of 1997, she related a
conversation she had with Mark Penn, a national public opinion pollster
who also works in behalf of President Clinton. Following months of criti­
cisms in the media about the labor situation in Southeast Asia, Nike asked
Penn to do an opinion poll for them on the subject. When Penn spoke to
Dolan about the preliminary poll results he observed that Nike registered

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1 72 Nike C u lture

A Land of Lost Children

Remember those "Happy Days" of youth when kids could be and gray side of childhood. The self-reflexive child-adult debuted
kids and didn't have to deal with adult problems, when kids did in the PL.A. Y campaign 's look, and was evident in the "If you
nothing but play. This mythic vision of childhood still appears in let me play [sports)" commercial. A comparable look reappears in
Saturday morning advertising where children are shown enthu­ a 1 997 PL.A.Y commercialJocused on estranged children who
siastically playing with advertised toys. More recently, advertis­ seem to bear the weight of the world on their shoulders as they
ing has turned to another view of childhood, the child-adult. A gaze directly into the camera. "We are your children" was satu­
1 994 Fuji film commercial introduced a montage of technologi­ rated with encodings of cinema reflexivity - including black and
cally sophisticated, self-aware children who "don 't play kick the whitefilm, off-center framing, the look ofbeing deep-in-serious­
can any more. " Mer, Microsoft, and American Express com­ thought, and cold background landscapes - to signifi) children
mercials replicated this look. Nike has capitalized on the sober longingfor an unalienated childhood.

We are your children

Your boys
Your girls
Your sons and daughters
we are old for our age
we are too fat
can't do a pull up
we smell
we inhale
we drink
we are mothers
we are fa thers
we are old for our age
we have no place to play
we have no place to play
we want to be strong
we want you to come out
and play
teach us to hit
teach us to throw
we are your children
we are you

Is this what is meant by a society of lost childhood? Has vision with its incessant mantra to consume that leaves youth
childhood disappeared? Or is this another instance of a panicky soft in the head and the belly? Can absent parents be convinced
middle class hysterically contemplating a world where so many to resume caring for their children? Here then is the crisis of
forces seem out of control? At the very least, this commercial childhood. Children who are unl11usc/ed, soft and overweight,
invests the subject with moral drama. Nike's social imagen) who have become jaded and cynical before their time, yearn for
hints at a world where children learn to be spectators and u ndis­ the return of their parents and a place to play - thl?l) yearn for a
ciplined consumers, rather than active players. But the Nike moment of innocence, the innocence of PLAY
appeal is more pointed as it bemoans the absence ofadult guid­ Consider another reading of the ad. The advertising indus­
ance and appropriate places to play. tn) has helped tum youth into a lucrative market. Advertising
The Nike ad addresses the crisis of childhood but couching promotes higher levels of consumption, which necessitate higher
social criticism in cinematic codes makes it diffic ult to pin down levels of disposable income to support these purchases. Looked at
the critique. Are today's parents wanting in parenting commit­ this way the Nike P.L.A. Y campaign begins to ring a little hol­
ment? Or is it povertt) with its wrenching of the family fabric low, since its prestigious swoosh and its pricing practices tempt
that poses a significant threat to our youth? Or maybe it is tele- less well-to-do youth to make themselves into monl?lj-earners as

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not on My Pla net 1 73

SOOIl IlS possible. Docs tllmillg childrell illto limlld Ilnllif COII­ Allierica 's children. As 1II1ICh as all If ad, this aile revenls the tell­
Sllllicrs liS earh/ lls possible colltriiJlllt: to the erosioll of child­ siolls betweclI sellillg cOlllllloditics and constructing images of
IlOocf? pllblic legitilllncy. Ellibeddilig IIlOml isslles ill the p/lilosophy
This collllilercial illUites a uariety of illterprctatiolls of illiage, 110 lIIatter hmp well illtelltiollcd, reJllillds us of the per­
depc/ldillg 011 tile IISSlllllptiOIlS viewers IIlnke. Nike's IIppml to ils of pllblic discourse in the age of tc/cl)isioll. For all its 11I0mi
parellts to get lIIore illuolued ill their childrell 's liues by tCIlc/lillg allii clllOtiollal in lt:llsity, " We lire YOllr childrell " frllllIes the mal­
thelll to pilly Illight be cYllicnlly illterprelt:d as a call to lilly kids ter as aliI' of choosillg bellPcell hope and hopelessness, while
high-priccd IItli/etic shoes. Or, it lIIigllt SCCIII as II pllblic-spirilt:d auoidillg tile fllndlllllclllal lllattcr of IIl1lrket forces and IIIlIrkel
call to volllllteer ollrselves IIl1d ollr resollrces to the fll til re of lllOmlitics.

high awareness and familiarity scores regarding these issues. Penn added
that he wished the Clinton White House could generate such interest and
awareness on its issues. Dolan replied that if Clinton's concerns were placed
on the sports pages, then he too might achieve this kind of expanded issue
awareness. Moral and political discourse now finds itself daily woven into
sports discourse.
Nike is one of very few contemporary corporate advertisers that has
successfully constructed a recognizable philosophy. What constitutes a phi­
losophy in the realm of television advertising? Since Western philosophy
has an academic tradition, we tend to think of philosophies as grandiose
encounters with metaphysical questions about Truth, Reality, Morality.
Thinking of philosophy as a system of images supported by slogans and
maxims seems to trivialize our inherited notions of philosophy. In the lat­
ter half of the twentieth century, both critical and conservative critiques of
mass culture have decried the invasion of these simplified philosophical
capsules. Writing at mid-century, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno
scorned the preconstituted commodity packaging of experience of any sort.H
Imagine what they might say if they encountered the prepackaged philoso­
phy of "Just do it" embedded, and ready for consumption, in the swoosh
sign?
Nike has taken up its position as philosopher in campaigns ranging
from the P.L.A.Y. campaign to the women's campaigns that address the
meaning of everyday life. Beyond articulating a philosophy of empower­
ment that informs our lives, Nike has made its advertising a space in which
to raise social questions and issues of conscience - the HIV epidemic, the
plight of inner city children, the benefits of sports for young girls. These
Nike ads touched an important chord insofar as they signified resilience and
empowerment.
Perhaps it is difficult to accept that a sneaker company could become so
central to public discourse. Here we must recognize how central the dis­
course of sport is to supporting a moral order. As commodity-driven sports
aphorisms echo through American culture, they offer a fleeting sense of
coherency and purpose in an otherwise increasingly fragmented social and
cultural formation. Consider how many corporations participate in this

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1 74 Nike C u lture

discourse, as they intrusively associate their names with every aspect of

sport - player of the game, bowl games, local races, starting lineups, half­
time reports, points in the paint, hardest hit of the week, ad nauseam.
Because Nike promotes bourgeois values supported by vignettes of
achievement, it appears to constitute a moral center in a media culture that
otherwise seems to have none. In this sense, Nike television ads appear like
moments of moral oasis: against the cynicism of the news (the 0.]. Simpson
trial), against the pornographic realism of media violence(Top Cops), against
the hypercommercialization of other commodity signs (the NBA and "I love
this game"), and against exaggerated sexual posturing (Calvin Klein). When
Nike seems to take moral stands as in its HIV runner ad, Nike positions itself
as standing against flashy, empty image candy in favor of the human spirit.
Participation in sport is associated with morality - with learning teamwork
and individual discipline, that success is associated with hard work. Still,
Nike is perceived as having philosophical integrity not merely because it
upholds the remains of bourgeois morality, but because it is relentlessly
irreverent about image-based posturing.
For much of the twentieth century, sport in America has been depicted
as the field within which divisions and distinctions of class and race can be
transcended. The ideological argument is simple: in sport, the only thing
that matters is performance, achievement and playing within the rules.
Today, sport is socially constructed as central to local communities, to
parent-child relations, and as a prime activity for socializing youth into
occupational achievers and citizens. Sport is thus positioned as an activity
through which we construct our identities. When constructed as a moral
force, there follows a lot of moralizing about sports with expectations that
athletes maintain exemplary moral standards like priests before them. Aware
that such an arena is full of hypocrisy in an era of full-contact commodifi­
cation, Nike distinguishes acting out the principle ("Just do it") from
mouthing the words. Working on the premise that consumers now seek to
wear their motivational commitments and identities on their clothing, a
Michael Jordan t-shirt available at NIKETOWN sums up this Nike worldview:

If you don't back it up with performance and hard work,

talking doesn't mean a thing.

We have argued that Nike has both an image of philosophy and a phi­
losophy of image. Nike's best-known photographic style idealizes the indi­
vidual by mixing realism with the classicism of low angle shots and
slow-motion movement shot in black and white. This isolates subjectivity
from the existential conditions of time and place and reframes it as human
essence. In Nike's representations, signifiers of alienation plus signifiers of
determination are defined as equaling transcendence. As long as one stays in
the game, life has meaning. Image of philosophy and philosophy of image

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not on My Pla net 1 75

come together in measured Nike discourses such as this from a 1997 Nike
Golf Tour ad.

I am not afraid to do what I want for a living. [Pause]

I am down to my last $ 1 00. [Pause]
I am without regrets. [Pause]
Just do it.

In Nike's world, participation in the human community is defined by the

will to act in accordance with our desires, and without regard to possible
failure.
What happens when philosophy is reduced to a flow of images?
Though simplistic and reductionist, it is democratic in the sense that an
empowering philosophy becomes available to a huge number of people.
When philosophy is turned into a capsule and linked to a totem-sign, it can
make people feel good because they have aligned themselves with more
than a run-of-the-mill product. But, of course, this makes empowerment
conditional on access to disposable income as well as the relative stability
of the sign and the consistency of belief embedded in it. There are various
problems with this philosophy-in-a-logo approach, or what we might now
refer to as ready-made praxis. First, while the consumer is now freed up to
act, this philosophical system also abolishes the need for critical thought.
Second, it tends to bury the relationship between biography and the socio­
historical conditions within which people live. So while Nike's advertising
seems aimed at urging people to take responsibility for their own production
of self, it cannot account for the great mass of human beings who live under
conditions that deny them even this possibility. Most serious of all, the econ­
omy of signs is not stable.

OVERSWOOSHIFICATION

In a global cultural economy economic growth is contingent upon the growth

of sign value. We have argued that physical labor is no longer the primary
source of value in the consumer commodity. Nike has attached its sign to an
expanding array of products and product lines in an expanding array of
cultures. Nike's growth seems unending. Nike's sign value seemingly erupted
beginning around 1986. And, in barely a decade's time, the Nike swoosh
became a global icon.
Nike built the value of its swoosh by positioning itself as the company
that puts athletics before commercialism. Nike separates itself from the pack
of sporting-goods corporations by expressing this calling of sport in its slo­
gans, advertisements, and public relations statements. Recall Nike's sharp
criticism of non-athletic product companies for overcommercializing the

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1 76 Nike C u lture

Olympics: "If a cupcake maker put its logo on an athlete that's commercial­
ism." Via Wieden & Kennedy, Nike has enjoyed success tweaking the media for
transforming sport into an overcommercialized enterprise.
Of course, Nike has played a significant role in the commercialization of
sport. In Nike's early days when its star was long distance runner Steve
Prefontaine, Nike aligned itself with the rights of runners to turn profes­
sional without losing their standing with the athletic governing bodies that
controlled track and field competitions. Prefontaine, and Nike behind him,
played the role of mavericks, declaring to the track world that there would be
no more deals under the table, everything now would be above board. A
quarter of a century later, Nike has evolved into a marketing giant because it
has solved more efficiently than any other in the industry the task of moving
its commodities through markets. In the 1990s, Nike has itself pressed the
boundaries, and the stakes, of commercialization into hitherto uncharted
territory. After all, it was Phil Knight who signed a controversial merchan­
dising arrangement when he aligned Nike with Jerry Jones and the Dallas
Cowboys, America's penultimate sports commodity machine. For the price
of $2.5 million annually through 2001, this deal allowed "Nike to paint its
trademark swoosh on the Cowboy'S stadium, develop a theme park in the
stadium, and outfit all Cowboys coaches and other sideline personnel in
Nike-made attire."9 On other fronts, Nike routinely seeks exclusive financial
arrangements with elite college basketball and football teams, placing the
Nike swoosh on virtually every top team's jerseys or shoes.lO Nike has been
known to engage in ambush marketing to associate itself with events spon­
sored by competitors. Against Adidas and Reebok, Nike competes intensely
for the stars of tomorrow by showering the most talented kids with free
gear, thus extending commercialization down to the high school level. Nike
employees have, on occasion, visited an inner city high school campus dri­
ving a Hummer, distributing swoosh-marked paraphernalia, and shooting a
few hoops with the kids. "That's our target consumer, the black, urban teen,"
said the Nike representative, after giving an impromptu lecture to the kids on
the value of education. "It's the coolness factor - if they wear [Nike prod­
ucts], the others will follow."ll All the activities that Nike decries in its ads
- the bidding up of salaries, the turning of every surface into a commercial,
the competition for kids' attention - Nike does. Nike is central to the com­
modification of sport, yet its symbol stands for the transcendent moment
of sport for its own sake.
Nike has attempted to separate itself from the taint of commercialism by
adopting self-reflexive, ironic, and winking attitudes towards the subject of
advertising. Nike advertising stands out because its ads acknowledge the
penetration of commercial relations into "everyday life in the modern
world."12 Nike acknowledges the presence of commodification in our cul­
ture by sharing jokes about the absurdities and excesses concocted in a cul­
ture driven by money. This advertising practice of sharing an aversion to

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not o n My Pla net 1 77

the inauthenticity of commercial life has enabled Nike to position itself as

an ally of viewers against corporate shills and hucksters. Listen to the lan­
guage of Arkansas Red in a 1997 ad as he separates the essence of basketball
from the commodification of sport. His "nobody owns us" speech paints
the relationships of proprietary ownership as a limiting and controlling force
in sport - but it is a source of unfreedom that is forgotten as soon as real
players take the court to play basketball.

Nobody owns us, man.

When I say us, I mean ballplayers.
Nobody owns us, you understand.
And nobody can own basketball.
There's no one person that can own this game.
You can take away the NBA.
So what? Take it away.
You can take away endorsements
So what?
You can take away the logos on the shoes
So what, take em all.
But when you can take all that away,
That Zoe,
That Indiana boy,
And the Street boy,
You still gonna be butter! [but-tal

Despite the fact that surely all would agree that Nike is the kingpin of bas­
ketball shoe logos, this Nike text scoffs at the commodity form (the NBA, the
endorsements, the logos), adopts the vernacular aesthetic of those from
below, and positions itself as an appreciator - par excellence - of the Truth of
Sport, all without even mentioning the Nike name. The Truth of Sport,
according to this Nike text, lies in the existential joy and pleasure afforded by
playing. It doesn't matter what signs appear on the shoes, because all of that
is just fluff that covers the essence of basketball. If this resonates with the
viewer, then there is yet another investment of authenticity onto the swoosh.
This swoosh has paid off handsomely for Nike profits. Today, the swoosh
is pervasive in public spaces devoted to sports - it appears across surfaces on
caps, jerseys, walls, even defining backgrounds and snowboards. Nike cur­
rently dominates the sign marketplace with its "swooshification" of the world.
Almost every camera shot during EsPN's television coverage of the 1997 X­
Games included a colorful orange swoosh naming the background - naming
the place. swooshification refers to this pervasiveness.
It is ironic then that at precisely this moment of cultural domination,
Nike becomes vulnerable because of the swoosh. swooshification hints at the
possibility of an impending devaluation on the Nike swoosh. Nike's success

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1 78 Nike C u lture

now requires that it take seriously the threat posed by massive overexpo­
sure to the value of the swoosh logo. At Nike headquarters there is talk of
"overswooshification." A self-appointed watchdog group has formed at Nike's
Beaverton campus, calling themselves the "Swoosh Integrity Committee."
Their concern? Attaching the "swoosh" to any surface it can find, trivializes it
- coffee mugs, key rings, nasal strips - and cheapens the value of the sWOOSh.13
Recognizing the potential dilution of the swoosh, this internal committee
focuses on maintaining the integrity of the swoosh by keeping it off non­
sports paraphernalia. This was, of course, the danger in developing into a
branded apparel company. The move from footwear to apparel has geo­
metrically boosted the swoosh's visual saturation of social spaces. In the US,
any day spent in public spaces sees the swoosh prominently displayed on
shoes, shirts, pants, socks, caps, j ackets, gloves and sunglasses, not to men­
tion the wallpapering at sporting events, or in shopping malls. It is possi­
ble to experience a sense of oversaturation. When asked about this, Liz
Dolan, Nike's former brand manager, indicated a need for fewer swooshes,
not more. Nike's goal, she said, is not that the swoosh be ubiquitous, but rather
that it connotes "specialness."
The overswooshification watchdog committee will unlikely be able to
solve, however, the basic dilemma that Nike (or any other firm in this indus­
try) encounters in a maturing sign economy. 14 At best, it can be managed
from moment to moment. Overswooshification is a metaphor for the loss of
value due to oversaturation and overcommercialization. Those old capitalist
demons of supply and demand have come back to haunt symbolic produc­
tion in the age of mechanical reproduction.

CONTESTED DISCOURSES

Many of the meanings attached to the Nike swoosh are near and dear to us -
ideals about competition and individual freedom, top performance, a uni­
versal code of morality and justice, and defiance of authority. This is what
gives the Nike sign its value. But, the bigger Nike gets, the more it dominates
its industry and the media, the more likely we hear of Nike practices that
run counter to these values. The Nike swoosh has become a magnet for both
praise and condemnation. Because Nike has sought to construct the appear­
ance of a publicly spirited entity devoted to the social good, it has brought
the issue of public morality front and center. How much does Nike's imagery
diverge from its practices? In some academic circles, this ratio between
imagery and practice is the basis for what is called ideology critique. By any
name, this kind of measuring stick has an important place in a democracy.
However, when this type of critique is taken up in the mass media it becomes
organized according to the logic of the spectacle. Thus the media have sim­
plified the situation of shoe production in Southeast Asia to the same degree

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not on My P l a n et 1 79

that Nike has abbreviated cultural issues related to authenticity, determina­

tion, social transcendence, and spiritual freedom and made them equiva­
lent with the Nike swoosh. Opponents now compress all that they do not like
about global capitalism and inscribe it on the Nike swoosh. With highly com­
pacted and potent symbolizations comes a new form of symbolic politics.
Building sign value by positioning oneself as a moral presence neces­
sitates that one's own practices be above reproach. But, Nike is a global cor­
poration that competes in a world capitalist economic system where there are
winners and losers: those who are paid highly and those who are paid
poorly. The logic of capital demands that profit be squeezed from every part
of the production/ exchange process. As Nike's sign value grows, the gap
between Nike's moral/ commercial rhetoric and the world of real social rela­
tions becomes increasingly apparent because the media that carry, and cul­
tivate, the system of signs, recognize that a celebrity sign - just as much as a
celebrity figure - carries instant news value. Updating the folk adage of an
earlier epoch, we now realize that "those who live by the Sign also die by
the Sign."
Looking for contradictions, ironies, and moments of hypocrisy that can
be turned into a story angle, the media lurks and pounces at every oppor­
tunity. Nike is now vulnerable precisely because the swoosh is so inflated
with cultural value. Political action groups, mainstream TV programming
such as Prime Time or 60 Minutes, and sports writers now find a ready target
in the Nike swoosh. And as the tides of spectacle politics turn, it has grown
ever more fashionable to engage in Nike bashing. "The anti-Nike backlash is
not just about the company's labor record. It's also a reaction to the global
reach of the Nike brand, the wall-to-wall ubiquity of its corporate moniker." l s
Oversupply leads t o devaluation every time. I n this climate, Nike has
been challenged by those claiming a higher moral ground. And these moral
attacks have come from almost every angle. It might be useful for a moment
to revisit some of the public relations headaches that have surfaced in recent
years as Nike evolved into a "ubiquitous" global presence.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Nike found itself the subject of nag­
ging criticism for culturally and economically exploiting the inner-city black
community and not reinvesting in it. For instance, over the years there has
surfaced and resurfaced what amounts to an urban folk legend about kids
who kill other kids for overpriced sneakers. In the early 1990s, Jesse Jackson
and Operation PUSH made headlines when they accused Nike of not pro­
viding sufficient employment opportunities for minority workers. And,
when Nike ran a series of TV ads with Spike Lee addressing questions of
racism, critics assailed the ads, arguing that they "smack[ed] of opportunism
and hypocrisy." I I>
Starting with the embarrassing revelation that Pakistani child labor
was stitching soccer balls, Nike was in the news week after week during
1996 and 1997. This was not the first time that Nike's production practices

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1 80 Nike C u lture

in Asia had been rendered visible. In 1992, Nena Baker of The Oregonian
wrote an expose on "The Hidden Hands of Nike."17 But there was not yet
the necessary cultural atmosphere to give resonance to the story. Nike's sign
value was not yet pervasive enough. However when charges of poor wages
and working conditions in Indonesia and Vietnam resurfaced in 1996, fol­
lowed by rippling waves of media coverage of an incident involving
Vietnamese assembly workers beaten with a shoe by a Korean floor man­
ager in a Nike-affiliated factory, public attention stayed focused on Nike. To try
to blunt the criticism, Nike hired Andrew Young, former UN Ambassador
and mayor of Atlanta, in February 1997, to investigate its factories and eval­
uate its Code of Conduct for relations with third-world producers.

As an advocate of human rights, I am involved because Nike has

expressed its determination to be a leader for positive corporate change.
Their commitment can result in growth and opporhmity for the commu­
nities around the world where they operate. 10

Still, the string of bad press continued as 10,000 Indonesian workers

struck in a Nike factory "just days after Nike put its name to a groundbreak­
ing anti-sweatshop pact between labor, human rights groups and apparel­
makers."IY Days later a violent rampage took place among these workers in
Jakarta as protesters burned cars and ransacked offices, while 3000 work­
ers in a Vietnam factory struck over wages 20 As the public relations quagmire
deepened, almost anything seemed to get thrown into the mix. Even in the
realm of signification, Nike found itself under attack when the Council on
American-Islamic Relations demanded a public apology from Nike for a
shoe logo on the Air Bakin' model intended to signify a flame that instead
resembled the word " Allah" in the Arabic script.21
To address the labor issues raised by its critics, Nike has engaged a
series of studies and audits. After the Andrew Young report proved less per­
suasive with its critics than Nike might have hoped because of its method­
ology and because it did not address the wage issue, Nike contracted with an
MBA team from Dartmouth's Tuck School to study wages and living con­
ditions in Asia. The research reported by the Dartmouth group found that
"Nike factory workers in Southeast Asia help support their families and have
discretionary income" left over after meeting basic needs to both consume
and saveY Just weeks later an activist group leaked an environmental safety
audit that Ernst & Young had done on a Vietnamese factory that produces
shoes for Nike. The leaked report indicated problems with noise and solvent
pollution (toluene, a carcinogenic ingredient in the adhesive used). Critics
saw the document as further evidence that Nike failed to take care of the
well being of workers. Nike's spokesperson replied by rhetorically asking
how many others firms take the initiative to do internal environmental
audits, and argued that the audit was yet another indicator that Nike was

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not on My Pla net 1 81

dedicated to responsibly locating and correcting problems. But the charges

and countercharges continue as questions about the methodology of the
Nike sponsored reports have been raised.23
These critiques of Nike take two general paths. One set of criticisms
mentioned above addresses production practices and the contradictions of
global capitalism, but without naming the latter. In behalf of poor youth on
both sides of the planet, anti-Nike protests in November 1997 linked the price
of athletic shoes in the inner city to wage rates in Asia as a matter of moral­
ity, not legality.

Dozens of young people from 11 settlement houses around the city are
planning to dump their old Nikes at the store to protest what they say is
the shoe company's double exploitation of the poor. They are part of a
growing movement that has criticized Nike for failing to pay workers in
Asian factories a living wage - about $3 a day in Indonesia, for example -
while charging style-setting urban teen-agers upwards of $100 for the
shoes. "Nike is making billions of dollars in America off you guys," said
Mike Gitelson, a social worker who helped start the protest. "Let's get
this straight, Nike is doing nothing illegal. For us, it is a moral question.
You can't make that much money off us and refuse to give your people
enough money to live on."24

A second set of concerns usually pivot around cultural challenges to Nike's

legitimation advertising. Advertising strategies that had previously drawn
public acclaim for Nike, began to elicit boos as well. Even Nike's tribute to
Jackie Robinson in an ad on the fiftieth anniversary of his breaking the 'color
barrier' in professional baseball became a contested discourse. The Nike com­
mercial crafted a sequence of shots of baseball players present and past, who
each, in turn, thank Jackie Robinson for opening up major league baseball to
black athletes. Sewn together as a visual poem voiced with sincere affect,
Nike's ad took on the reverential tone of a liturgical prayer:

for letting me be the player I always wanted to be

for letting me compete against the very best
for lettingfathers and sons realize their dreams
for Reggie Jackson's 3 home runs
for Ernie Banks playing too
for Roberto Clemente throwing to third
for Hank Aaron's 715
for my 2 1 years in the major's
for the chance to play in October
for the joys of stealing home
for all us that never got to play
for enduring every taunt
and not lashing out in hate

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1 82 Nike C u lture

for standing up with dignity

for standing up
for opening our eyes
for the power of an entire race.
Thanks, Jackie
Thanks, Jackie
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you Jackie Robinson
Thank you

The litany was signed with the swoosh. In conjunc­

tion with the campaign Nike donated $350,000
toward scholarships awarded by the Jackie Robinson Foundation. This
drew praise from Robinson's widow and daughter. "You must understand,
Phil Knight was the chairman of our dinner," said Sharon Robinson. "They
had a connection to the Jackie Robinson Foundation that has been going
on all year, even before that. We don't see it as exploitative at all. It's a beau­
tiful commercial."25
But, sportswriters cried hypocrisy at Nike for running this commercial
tribute to Jackie Robinson as a way of "insinuating" itself into great moments
of sports history with which it had nothing to do. Suddenly, sports writers
were playing the role of deconstructionists and ideology critics, challeng­
ing the way in which Nike advertisements seek to build the value of its image
by investing it with authentic significance, in this case drawn from the mem­
ory of Jackie Robinson, a heroic American icon. The sportswriters didn't just
deconstruct, they did so for the purpose of assigning an alternative sign
value to Nike, that of a dark empire driven by the "greedy" Phil Knight.26

Consider a recent commercial featuring black baseball stars thanking Jackie

Robinson for breaking the color line. It is a touching tribute, grainy film
footage mixed with heartfelt messages. It looks like some philanthropic
foundation put it together. But when the moment peaks, and your heart
is open, what's the last thing you see? A Nike swoosh. Same way you see a
Nike swoosh after those Tiger Woods commercials, in which the children of
the world - all races, mind you - dream of being Tiger. You'll notice these
ads do not try to sell you shoes or clothing - which are, after all, what Nike
makes. But that should be your first warning. By its founder 's admission,
Nike is no longer in the shoe business; it's in the image business. It wants
you to feel a certain way. It wants you and your kids to desire the swoosh
subliminally, under the skin, without even knowing why. Call it planned
addiction. First, Nike wants your mind. Then it takes your walletY

We might ordinarily expect to find stories about the global economy

on the front pages, but we don't because news reporters have naturalized

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"J ust Do It, " B u t Not on My P l a net 1 83

capitalism as the economy, not as one historical method of organizing an

economy. And yet, we often find reports that question the morality of apply­
ing the logic of capital to the ___domain of sports. But why? Why has semiotic UNDER PUBLIC

and moral critique become the bailiwick of sportswriters? To compete in the SCRUTINY
global cultural economy corporations must produce culture (signs) as well as

SW E A T
commodities. One approach to investing commodities with cultural value
has been to draw on the meaning of sports in people's lives. By investing
commodities with moral purpose - and particularly with moral purpose IT

that draws on the meaningfulness of sport - Nike has unintentionally made

it incumbent on sportswriters to defend and protect their moral turf from
SPINS.
profanation. 1?."?":;:§"·2:�::--i:.:::::-j:: 1:

THE SWOOSH AND ITS CONTRADICTIONS

The story we have tried to tell treats Nike's construction of the swoosh as the
hub of a complex set of cultural contradictions. While Nike attempts to con­
tinually add value to its symbol by controlling its meaning and ensuring its
pervasiveness, other participants have brought their own agenda to this
negotiated space. When Press for Change or Campaign for Labor Rights bring
unacceptable work place practices into the light of public discourse, the sign
value of the swoosh may become tarnished. For them, the disparity between
advertising images and production processes reflects the disparity between
the lives of those in the core and those in the periphery. And when sports­
"Under public scrutiny Nike
writers condemn Nike for bringing the "image business" into the world of
doesn 't sweat it spins " reads this
sports, corrupting youth by engaging them in "planned addiction," we see Adbusters anti-ad. Nike legitima­
the contested terrain shift to Nike's own image and its position in a system of tion strategies have lost credibility
cultural production. in a cynical world. On another
One of the interesting sidelights to the media coverage of "the Nike front, protesters picket a
NIKETOWN store. The sign
controversy" as the press put it, has been how other companies disappear
reads "Phil Knight makes $1526 a
from view. Where are Reebok, Adidas, and Fila in these stories about produc­ day. lndonesian Nike worker
tion practices? Media criticism rarely identifies, and it certainly never inflates, makes $2.50 a day. "
the root logic of Capital, or the structure of the global economy. Instead, crit­
icism on television and in the newspapers flows out of the gap between rep­
resentation and practice. When Nike celebrates athletic activity as
self-affirming, liberating, empowering, and transcendental, and by repre­
sentational equivalence attaches itself to its own promotions in order to swell
its sign value,
Nike practices become a ready target because its advertising
has made the swoosh so very visible, and so loaded it with significance. In
-
other words, the very thing - the swoosh that has made Nike successful in
the world of consumption also acts like a magnet for negative publicity.
Strange as it may seem, an important institutional space for the public
culture of a global system of capitalism has fallen to advertising. In this
space, corporations construct motifs that depict globalization with imagery

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1 84 Nike C u lture

of liberalism, multiculturalism, and universal humanism.2B Nike speaks the

language of universal rights, concern for children, transcendence over the
categories of age, race, gender, disability or any social stereotype. As moral
philosophy, its images speak out against racism, sexism, and ageism. Nike's
imagery celebrates sport, athletic activity, and play as universally rewarding
categories. Playing makes for healthier, more productive citizens, and better
self-actualized human beings. However, no matter what its imagery sug­
gests, Nike, like any other capitalist firm, must operate within the relation­
ships and constraints of competitive capitalist marketplaces. No matter how
many P.L.A.Y. commercials Nike runs on TV, there will still be haunting
images of production practices in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Vietnam. And
as the world grows more unified, it becomes increasingly difficult to sup­
press entirely those gaps between image and practice, between humanism
and capitalism, between moral philosophy and the bottom line of corporate
profit growth.
When Nike engages issues of personal transcendence, race, gender and
class in the public arena, it positions itself as a corporation with a sense of
what is ethical, and not just what is expedient. But in a cynical commodity
world, this kind of communication is automatically suspect. When idealism
is expressed in commercial messages and transformed into a multi-billion
dollar global industry, contradictions will surface. Nike's engagement in pub­
lic discourse comes at a price - the expectation that it make itself accountable
to a higher standard than that ordinarily practiced in a capitalist world. This
is a virtual impossibility since the capitalist firm must do its business in a
capitalist world.2Y "Just do it" may be an empowering slogan but it is no
match for the imperatives of capitalist institutions. And sure enough, in
December 1997, Nike dumped its established "Just do it" slogan in favor of a
supposedly more enabling slogan, "I can." Perhaps the shift was pursued
to avoid the trap of letting one's public imagery get stale, perhaps it was a
response to slower than expected sales, declining future orders, a buildup of
inventory, a steadily slipping stock price, and the continuing stream of pub­
lic criticism that leveraged familiarity with the "Just do it" slogan into anti­
Nike campaign slogans.
In what we have called an economy of sign value, brand logos like the
swoosh have become subject to an accelerated tempo of competition in image
markets. When cultural meanings are turned into commodities that can be
attached to other commodities for the purpose of making them stand out, all
the old rules of currencies and commodities come into play. Symbols like
the swoosh become vulnerable to oversaturation and an accelerated rate of
value burnout. We have discussed in some detail how Nike has positioned
itself as irreverent and rebellious to try to offset these tendencies by appear­
ing to value authenticity over the manipulativeness of the marketplace. We
have also seen how difficult it is to maintain this dual commitment to sin­
cerity and irreverence when the material world keeps impinging. To do so

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"j u s t Do It, II B u t Not on My P l a net 1 85

demands that advertisers find ways to make their images relevant and to
do so in an already saturated commercial environment requires taking risks
- raising issues that commercials have previously avoided because they
touch on the sphere of public debate. Compounding this, like any other firm
that seeks to play in this global consumer economy, Nike must concern itself
with how to balance overswooshification against the fear that other com­
petitors will take over part of its sign space. Nike faces a self-contradictory
image environment that is coming to haunt all firms that wish to play in
this global system. Who would have ever dreamt that commercial slogans
could give rise to something much larger?

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 . jeff jensen, "Marketer of the year: Nike honored: ubiquitous swoosh illustrates how
brand represents not just shoes but all of sports," Adlicrtisil,S Ase, December 1 6 1996,
p. l .
2 . See Scott Lash and john Urry, £Collolllies of'SiS"s alld Space (Sage, London, 1994).
3. Cited in jensen, "Marketer of the year: Nike honored," p. 1 .
4 . See Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, SiSII Wars (Guilford, New York, 1 996).
5. Tony Koenderman, "South Africa weighs on ambushing," Advertisillg Age, September
1997, p. 1 6.
6. jennifer Steinhauer, "Nikc is in a league of its own; with no big rival, it calls the shots
in athletic shoes," The Nei(l York Tillles, june 7 1997, p. 21 .
7. Dan Wieden, "A sense of cool: Nike's theory of advertising." Harvard Business Rt'lIiCi(l,
July / August 1992, p. 97ff.
S. M a x Horkeimer and Theodor W. Adorno, "The culture ind ustry," D ialcctic of'
Elllightenl1lellt, translated by john Cumming (Allen Lane, London, 1973), pp. 1 20-67.
9. Richard Sandomir, "Dollars and Da llas: league of their own?" Neil' York Tillles,
September 24 1995, pp. 1, 1 3.
10. Jeff Manning, " Nike Inc. 5<(loo,/les into deal at Ohio State," Tlte Oresoniall, December 30
1995, pp. B7, 6S
1 1 . jeff Manning, "Guerrilla marketing: the other final four," The Onxolliatl, April 3 1995,
p. A I .
12. The phrase i s from Henri Lefebvre's, Even/day Life ill tlte Modem World (Harper & Row,
New York, 1 971 ) .
1 3. Putting the sign (the "(loosll) o n a n object deemed t o have little corresponding value,
the value of the sign suffers.
1 4. See Goldman and Papson, Sigll Wars.
1 5. Josh Feit, "Alas, poor Nikt': the real reason Nikc is the most reviled company in the
galaxy," The Willalllctte Week, November 5 1997, pp. 20-24, 26, 2S.
16. "When shove came to PUSH. (PUSH demands jobs for blacks at Nike)," The Ecollolllist
316 (September 22 1 990), p. 2S. Cyndee Miller, " A dvertisers promote racial harmony;
Nike criticized," Marketillg News, July 6 1 992, p. 1 .
1 7. Nena Baker, "The hidden hands o f Nikc," Tlte Oregollillll, August 9 1992, pp. A I , A l O-1 1 .
I S. " Nike h i res Andrew Young's group t o evaluate its code o f conduct," Tile Oregolliall,
February 25 1997, p. Cl .
19. Jeff Manning, " Nikc strikers in Indonesio bock on job," Tlte Oregolliall, April 24 1 997,
pp. E 1 , E2.

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1 86 Nike C u lture

20. J i m H i l l , " Nike plant shuts after worker protest," Tile O regOl1iall, April 27 1 997,
pp. B 1 , B12.
21. "Muslims demand apology for Nike logo," Sail A l l tollio Express Net!'s, April 1 0 1 997,
p. 2E. Samantha Levine, "Recall or no, Nikc shoe still available," Tile Oregollian, June 27
1 997, pp. C l , G.
22. "Study: Nike pay more than adequate," Tile Oregolliall, October 1 7 1 997, pp. Cl, C3.
23. Jeff Manning, " Audit: Nikc factory workers at risk," Tile Oregoniall, Nowmber 8 1997,
p. B l . Dara O'Rourke, "Smoke from a hired gun: a critique of Nike's labor and envi­
ronmental auditing in Vietnam as performed by Ernst & Young," unpublished paper
under the auspices of the Transnational Resource and Action Center (TRAC) San
Francisco, California, www.corpwatch.org. November 10 1997.
24. David Gonzalez , "Youthful foes go toe to toe w i th Nike," Tile Nn!' York Tillles,
September 27 1 997.
25. Ken Rosenthal, " Nike ad may be self-serving, but end does justify means," Baltill/ore
51111, April 1 4 1997, p. l C
26. A t the shrill end o f these indictments was a piece b y Joel D . Joseph, "Horrid business
practices enrich Nike; Shoe company's fortunes come from exploitation of workers in
Third World countries," Tile Fresl10 Bee, June 30 1 996, p. B5. His condemnation began,
"Phil Knight is the godfather of the Nike Mafia . "
27. Mitch Albom, "Mind vour money because Nike has designs o n both," Pitts/Jllrgil Post­
Cazette, June 14 1997, p. B3. See also, Tom Archdeacon, "For NIKE, it's about shoes,"
Daytcl/1 Daily Neil'S, April 6 1997, p. 1 0.
28. Within this system of images, Nike stands for participation in the global community
through sports, BClletloll through political awa reness, Microsoft through imagination
synergized by its software, IBM through technological power, Coen-Cola through the
celebration of h a rmony, the Bodi! 51/Op through ecological and global concern.
Corporate signs of global unification construct i mages of global citizenship, multi­
cultural respect, and social and environmental concern. Such advertising encourages
consumers to \·iew themselves as citizens of the world, while the corporations appear
as a unifying force in a world otherwise experienced as increaSingly fragmented and
conflictual.
29. For a recent account of the political-economic circumstances of producing shoes in
the South Asian region of the global capitalist economy see Jeff Manning's series i n
Til(' Oregolliall in November 1997. Manning's "Tracks across t h e globe" consisted o f
three instalments: "Day 1 : Nikc's Asian machine goes o n trial," November 9, p p . A I ,
A 1 4-15; "Day 2: poverty's legions flock t o Nike," November 1 0 , pp. A I , A6-A7; and
"Day 3: Nikc steps into political minefield," November 1 1 , pp. A I , A6-A7. See also
William Greider, Olle W(1/'ld, Rmdy or Not: The Mallie Logic of Clobal CapitalislI/ (Simon &
Schuster, New York, 1 997).

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 INDEX

abstraction, 18, 36, 37, 57, 71, 72, 120; see Agassi, Andre, 61, 90, 159
also decontextualization alienation, 71-72, 81, 94-96, 109; aes­
addressing viewers, 35, 37, 38, 134, 143; thetic of, 95, 96, 113; and authentic­
forms of address, 35, 40, 92, 138-139; ity, 96; Hegelianized, 95; imagery of
therapeutic address, 153; see also unalienated activity, 80, 106; of
appellation; hailing; metacommuni­ labor, 95; as misdirected idle time,
cation 110; signifiers of, 71 , 81, 114, 115,
Adidas, 4, 9, 17, 46, 170, 176, 183 1 74; of spectators, 3, 86, 97
advertising, and abstract consumption, alreadyness, 35, 38, 127; and ideological
72; ambush advertising, 170; anti­ assumptions, 35
advertising, 76; anti-consumerism, appellation, 35, 70, 90, 157; and code
76, 91; circulation of images, 25; the violations, 134, 157; collective, 67; see
commodity self, 80; and conceptions also addressing viewers; hailing;
of individualism, 2-3; copycat, 56; as positioning viewers
economy of sign values, 1-2, 21, 24, appropriation, 14, 24, 26-32, 77, 82, 91,
91, 178-179, 184; formulas, 3, 25, 34, 100-106, 147; of feminism, 123, 1 24-
40, 75; and knowing wink, 40-43; 1 25; of ghetto speech, 100-102, 1 1 5;
logic of, 40, 44, 71; and middle class and rearrangement of meaning, 33,
morality, 14, 85; as semiotic equa­ 115
tions, 24, 40; as system of producing Arkansas Red, 37, 105-108, 140, 177;
sign values, 2, 15, 16, 24-25, 70 and authenticity, 106; as organic
ascetic aesthetics, 158; commodity aes­ intellectual, 106
thetics, 167; and differentiation, 34, asceticism, 157; and Protestantism, 158,
166; Hobbesian aesthetic of intensity, 159; and self-denial, 147; and sports,
154, 155, 158; Nike's ad aesthetic, 75, 162
96, 147, 158, 165-167; and photogra­ Asian production sites, 6-11, 13, 1 43,
phy I video, 26, 34, 69, 71, 94-96, 105, 1 78-180, 184; Indonesia; Japan;
165-166, 1 74; realism, 94, 97, 1 02, People's Republic of China; South
103, 105, 115; and spirituality, 147; Korea; Taiwan; Vietnam
style, 20, 26, 165; as style of significa­ athletic footwear industry, 4, 6-7, 9,
tion, 26; and subcultural identity, 37; 10-12, 15, 16, 18, 25; subcontractors,
and tone of voice, 26, 34, 37, 38, 88, 8-9, 11, 143
94, 120, 121, 122, 128; vernacular, 177 authenticity, 3, 37, 38, 58, 77, 79, 80, 81,

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1 88 Nike C u lture

authenticity, cont., 96, 103-109, 117, 140, bourgeois (middle class) values and
143, 156, 177, 184; and appropriation, morality, cant., work ethic, 48, 51,
102; gender representations, 121, 128; 70, 97, 99-100, 148-149, 151, 1 74
vs. the inauthentic (commercialism), brand(name), 2, 1 6-20, 184; and differ­
42, 52, 74, 84, 102, 104, 106, 1 77; and entiation, 24; equity, 24; global, 16;
media-reflexivity, 121; of nature, 164; identification, 35; and identity, 2, 24,
self-fulfillment, 164; and sign wars, 46, 56, 126; parity, 25; and TV adver­
1 70-171; and the swoosh, 37, 1 77; and tising, 56; value, 1-4, 57
vernacular, 106-109 Burroughs, William, 81, 90
authenticity quotient, 49, 80
capital logic, 9-15, 62, 103, 108, 109, 143,
Baker, Houston, 84-86 183; and sign value, 1 79; and sym­
barbershop, 41, 103; and communitas, bolic capital, 169
66; and male banter, 66-67 capitalism, 10, 30, 55, 56, 110, 168, 184;
Barkley, Charles, 'bad boy,' 82; "I am and contradictions, 144, 1 78-179,
not a role model," 54, 84-85, 114; as 181, 184; global, 4-16, 143-144, 169,
celebrity athlete, 138; PLAY cam­ 1 79, 181, 182-183; industrial, 153;
paign, 109-110; product differentia­ invisible institutions, 110; and labor
tion, 57-58 markets, 12-14, 21, 96, 104, 108;
Barthes, Roland, 42, 72, 117 NIKETOWN, as temple of, 148; sup­
Bateson, Gregory, 33 ply and demand, 1 78-179; and wage
Baudrillard, Jean, 31, 45 work, 9, 11, 95, 99, 110, 111, 181
Bellah, Robert, 61, 62, 150 Carville, James, 26, 88-90
Benetton, 85, 133, 157 celebrity athlete, 42, 46-57, 62-63, 70,
Berger, John, 35, 71, 122-123 86, 138, 140, 159; and role/not role
black public sphere, 84-85, 103-105; models, 48, 54, 58, 84, 114
and barbershop, 67, 103; and basket­ childhood, 114, 132-137, 172-173
ball court, 103-105; see also public class, 55, 79, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100, 1 74; clas­
culture sism, 136; race as a visual proxy for,
the body, 79, 128-129, 151-152; absent 109
gender signifiers, 141, 142; body clutter, 2, 26; breaking through, 134
sculpting and narcissism, 125, 151; codes, 31, 60, 94, 96, 105, 141, 158;
discipline and the docile body, 125, advertising, 40; of race and class,
161; female body as object of desire, 54-56, 112; realist, 97, 105, 112; viola­
125; and pleasure, 106, 129; suffering tions, 156-157; see also encoding and
and pain, 135-36, 149, 154, 157-158; decoding
as a temple, 66, 128 commercialization (putting things into
Bolton-Holifield, Ruthie, 27 commodity form), 54, 74, 76, 104;
Bordo, Susan, 125 crass, 31, 79, 166; and impurity, 106,
bourgeois (middle class) values and 114, 146; of sport, 43-44, 62-63, 65,
morality, 54, 83, 100, 110, 114, 146, 68, 114, 146, 154, 1 76-177; see also
174, 178; achievement, 20, 48, 149; self-reflexivity
determination and perseverance, 19, commodity culture, 3, 4, 25, 30, 104,
70, 130, 146, 150, 157; discipline, 165; and globalization, 4
99-100, 125, 161, 1 74; individualism, commodity fetishism, 49, 75, 76
20, 100, 157; male self-mastery, 122; commodity form, 79-80, 104, 143, 1 77;
and nature, 162-165; taboos, 85; and absence, 79-80; commodifica­
transgressing, 54, 84, 155-157; will tion, 2, 3 , 36, 38, 62, 64, 71, 77, 80, 85,
power, 15, 99-100, 146, 151; 101, 137, 144, 1 63, 1 64, 165, 1 73, 1 74,

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I n d ex 1 89

commodity form, commodification, desire, cont., for community/ sociality,

cont., 176-177, 178; and inauthentic­ 61; female body as object of desire,
ity, 80, 1 77; the not-commodity, 64, 125; for identity, 56; utopian, 71;
80, 111; see also self-reflexivity wealth and fame, 56
commodity signs, 15, 19, 24-25, 37, 74, deskilling, 12, 13
80, 87, 1 74; cycle of, 25; and differen­ differentiation, 2, 25-26, 34, 57-59, 96,
tiation, 25-26, 58; swoosh as Nike's 156, 166
core value, 15, 80 Durkheim, Emile, 163
community; of athletes, 64-68; in the Dyson, Michael, 56
barbershop, 66; as fraternity, 47,
63-64; and love for the game, 64; of Ellul, Jacques, 162
major league baseball players, empowerment, 19, 56, 125-131,
64-65; Nike community, 58, 65-66, 143-144, 154, 1 73, 1 75, 183; and dis­
70; of spectators/viewers, 62, 77; of empowerment, 101, 144; "Instant
sport and play, 61-62, 66, 68, 70; of Karma," 68; and women's sports,
subcultural meaning, 37; of women, 128, 130-131, 183
125, 132 encoding/ decoding, 34, 71, 89, 132, 172
crisis of Meaning, 92, 147-148 entertainment ads, 32, 36, 37, 41, 52, 77
cultural capital, of media-experience, equivalence, 35-36, 115
92; and African-American vernacu­
lar, 1 09; appropriation of African­ Foucault, Michel, 117, 160-161
American culture, 100; Nike's frames / framing of meaning, 39, 54, 71,
cultural capital, 173 102, 107, 112, 113, 143, 1 65; ad frame­
cultural contradictions, 3, 44, 56, 170; work, 24; aesthetic frames, 96; gen­
between commodified sport and der frames, 143; and hegemony, 143;
moral individualism, 80, 114; male gaze, 122; mortise, 100; music
between consumerism and material as framing device, 44, 68, 97, 166,
inequalities, 56; between ego-ideal 167; self-awareness of frames, 52, 67;
and commercialization, 114; slogan as frame, 72
between individualism and commu­
nity, 61; between representations the game, 62-63, 64, 66, 70, 80, 106; love
and practices, 184; of the celebrity of the game, 47, 64-66, 80, 101, 166;
athlete, 36, 42; of sign value, vs. playing for money, 63
177-179; of the swoosh, 183-185 Garnett, Kevin, 53, 105-106, 108
cynicism, 3, 25, 64, 70, 74, 86, 88, 89, Gatorade, 35-36, 48, 56, 165
91-92, 134, 147, 148, 163, 1 65, 170, the gaze, 82, 167; insane, 82; male, 119,
184; and advertising, 92; and ideol­ 122-125, 126, 127-129, 137; pleasure
ogy, 92; irreverence, 79, 81, 86, 88, 91, of, 167; spectator, 167
92; and nihilism, 3, 70, 102 gendered representations, 106-107,
1 17ff; difference, 119-121, 150; female
Debord, Guy, 167 bonding and sincerity, 129-132; and
de Certeau, Michel, 147 images of teamwork, 64-67, 129-
decontextualization, 25, 29, 35, 57, 71, 131; incorporating feminist ideology,
72, 102, 105, 116; emptying out 125; and irony, 1 22; male bonding
meaning, 18, 29; see also abstraction and banter, 121, 130; masculinity,
desire, for authenticity, 106; black 121-122; ideological pluralism, 143;
basketball stars as object of desire, rejection of patriarchy, 127, 129, 143;
56, 1 04; to achieve ego-ideal, 114, self-actualization and ideologies of
142; and commodities, 9; empowerment, 122, 125, 128, 143,

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gendered representations, self-actual­ Horkheimer, Max & Adorno, Theodor,

ization and ideologies of empower­ 173
ment, cont., 144, 154, 175; semiotics humanism, 70, 163; classic humanism,
of, 118-119; socially constructed cat­ 68-69, 71, 122; decontextualized, 71;
egories, 127, 129, 131, 141 The Family of Man, 68-69, 71; the
George, Nelson, 55 human spirit, 67, 68, 71, 115, 151,
Gilroy, Paul, 101 174; Tiger Woods as signifier of uni­
global economy / global capitalism, versal humanism, 114, 115; universal
4-16, 169, 179, 181, 1 82-183, 185; humanism, 68, 72, 115, 163, 184
commodity chains, 7-9, 11-13; and hyperauthenticity, 1 03, 105; and photo­
cultural economy, 175; cultural econ­ graphic style, 105
omy of signs/ sign economy, 9, 91; hyperrealism; hyperreal codes, 38;
deindustrialization and capital hyperreal identity, 55; hyperreal
flight, 104; flexibility, S, 7; flexible video, 69, 115, 151
accumulation, 7, 12, 15; outsourcing,
5, 7, 15, 154; and sports culture, 4 identity, 48, 49, 56, 115, 126, 127-128,
Global Exchange, 11 150, 163, 1 74; "I am Tiger Woods,"
Goffman, Erving, 102 114-115; conformism and over-iden­
Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, 39, 81 tification, 48, 56; identification, 10,
Gray, Herman, 101 48, 115; investment in logo, 35;
Griffey, Jr., Ken, 78, 88-90 ready-made, 126; relationship to
commodities, 9, 35, 49; and specta­
hailing, 27, 35, 36-40, 67, 70, 90, 96, 125; tor/ consumer, 33, 76
and aesthetic practices, 37; the cyni­ ideology critique, 178, 182
cal viewer, 3, 40, 63, 88, 90, 91; and Iggy Pop, 29, 155-156
ideology, 37, 38; and metacommuni­ individualism, 46, 47, 48, 61, 80;
cation, 52, 179; sports subcultures, achievement, 9, 68, 173; advertising
36-39; and tone of voice, 37, 38, 52, fantasies, 2; autonomous ego, 126;
128, 134; by violating conventions, cult of the individual, 163; dark side,
134; with a wink, 43, 64; women, 48; expressive individualism, 150;
123, 126-134, 139, 150 and market forces, 10; and narcis­
Hamm, Mia, 129, 130, 138, 141-142, sism, 159; prepackaged, 3, 81; and
158 privatization, 61, 62, 65, 66, 147;
Hardaway, Penny, 46, 53, 51-55, 58, 78, unbridled, 61
97-100; Little Penny, 52-55, 78 inspirational ads, 1 9-20, 69-70, 75, 77,
Haug, W. E, 167 126; and irreverence, 34
hegemon� 84-86, 132, 143 intertextuality, 41, 45 53, 64-65, 89, 156,
hermeneutic puzzles, 60-61 159; media intertextuality, 65; play­
hero worship/ identification, 46-48, 56, ful, 82, 122, 138; self-referential inter­
75, 78, 82, 85, 110-111, 114-115, 142, textuality, 48
1 67; and anti-heroes, 58; media-liter­ irreverence, 3, 34, 44, 52, 74-75, 77, 79,
ate, 80; and role models, 114; 81-84, 86, 88-92, 146, 147-148, 163,
hero worship /identification, cont., and 184; and irony, 75, 81
women, 126, 142
HIV / AIDS, 147, 153, 173 Jackson, BO, 41-42, 52, 75, 86-87, 100
hollowed corporation, 4 Johnson, Michael, 158
hooks, bell, 107 Jordan, Michael, 26, 42, 46-51, 54-58,
Hoover, Stewart, 147 62-64, 76, 102, 165-167; Brand
Hopper, Dennis, 3, 82, 91, 142 Jordan, 2; with Bugs Bunny, 87;

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Jordan, Michael, cont., as celebrity ath­ masculinity, 50, 122; black masculinity,
lete (superstar), 16, 70, 138; endorse­ 55, 56, 106
ment king, 75; Jumpman logo, 165; media-referentiality, 41, 74, 75, 81-83,
love of the game, 63-64; and mas­ 88, 122; self-referential, 41, 48, 65
culinity, 55, 56, 122; and motivation, metacommunication, 32-34, 36, 40, 41,
49-50; PLAY campaign, 109-111; 44, 52, 77, 78, 79, 86, 9 1 , 107, 128; and
and product differentiation, 47, differentiation, 44; and hailing, 52,
57-58; and race, 100-101; and sign 79; and tone of voice, 24-26, 33, 40,
value, 2, 75, 167; self-reflexive/ self­ 122
deprecating humor, 48, 50; transcen­ Mills, C Wright, 64
dence, 47, 1 65-167; see also Nike motivational ethos, 3, 67; motivation
philosophy discourses, 30, 67, 149, 170; motiva­
Joyner-Kersee, Jackie, 109, 111-112, 138 tion themes, 3, 20, 35, 119, 120, 135,
1 52-153
Kirkland, Peewee, 99-100 Mulve� Laura, 122
Knight, Phil, 4, 14, 16-17, 57, 71 , 74, 86,
88, 89, 1 09, 114, 176, 182, 183 NBA, 48, 1 77; "I love this game" slogan,
65; and hoop dreams, 99, 100; and
Lasch, Christopher, 48 hypercommercialization, 63, 65, 174;
Lears, Jackson, 149 as marketing machine, 51; promot­
Leary, Denis, 26, 86-87 ing women's basketball, 1 38
Lee, Spike, "its gotta be the shoes," 42, NFL, 31-33, 141
49; and cultural colonization, 101; Nike philosophy 3, 10, 1 9-20, 37, 41, 50,
fielding the racism topic, 100, 179; 62, 71, 66, 99, 128, 142, 147, 151-152,
Malcolm X, 115; as Mars Blackmon, 154, 160, 1 69-175; of empowerment,
28, 48-49, 55, 76, 101, 117; Rock 173; humanism, 69; and image,
Steady, 139; self-reflexivity about 1 74-175; and love of the game, 66; as
commercials, 63; and sign value, a moral presence, 10, 179; and mav­
27-28, 45, 75 erick image, 143, 156, 176; philoso­
legitimation /legitimacy, 91, 92, 116, phy-in-a-logo, 175; prepackaged,
137, 173; advertising, 112, 181; and 173; and self-effacing critique, 76-78
corporate sponsors, 69, 149; Nike's NIKETOWN, 8, 1 3, 15-16, 146, 148, 165,
legitimacy, 37, 91, 137; of women's 1 74, 183
sports, 122, 140; see also P. L.A.Y.
campaign Olympics, 1996 , 1 38, 1 57-159, 166;
Leslie, Lisa, 139-140 overcommercialized, 43-44, 154;
logo, 1, 10, 18, 44, 79-80, 96; and badge parody of Whatzit icon, 43-44; and
value, 102; logo cops, 18; see also women's sports, 118; NBC's cliched
swoosh logo narratives, 149
Lombardi, Vince, 31-33 organic intellectual, 67, 105
otherness /the Other, 97, 101, 102, 107,
Malcolm X, 115 108; and desire, 108; fantasy of the
Marcuse, Herbert, 81 primitive, 107; recuperating the
market forces, 5, 9, 10, 46, 62, 104, 117, Other, 108
143-144, 173; and empowerment/ overswooshification, 1, 175-178, 184,
disempowerment, 144 185
market niches, 5, 6, 37, 38, 54, 57, 144;
and ideological preferences, 123 Payton, Gary, 54, 59, 60
Marx, Karl, 11, 165, 167 Pippin, Scottie, 59-60

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PL.A.Y. campaign, 80, 81, 1 00, 1 09-112, referent system, 26, 59-60, 96
137, 138, 172, 1 72-173, 184; as legiti­ reflexivity, see self-reflexivity
mation, 112 religion a la carte, 147-150
pleasure of the text, 77; of the gaze, 167; representations; see childhood; see gen-
of viewing, 29, 60 der; see poverty; see race; see senior
positioning; and command structure, citizens
40, 126; and anger, 33, 40, 48, 124; Ritzer, George, 162
brand/ product, 30, 31, 40; and the Rodman, Dennis, 82, 83
male gaze, 1 22; viewers, 26, 28, Roof, Wade Clark, 148
33-35, 40; women, 126 Rothenberg, Randall, 74
postmodern, 122, 133, 147, 154, 165
poverty, 9, 94, 97-99, 109-113, 116; aes­ Sanders, Deion, 32, 77; see also the spec-
thetic codes and video techniques, tacle
94-96; as alienation, 109; children/ Savan, Leslie, 81, 89
youth in poverty, 94, 1 09-11 1 , 172; in Scott Heron, Gil, 29-30
Dominican Republic, 97; and ghetto/ self, 126-128, 149, 1 63-165 , 1 75;
barrio representations as landscapes, autonomous ego, 126; and ego-ideal,
94, 95, 101-102, 104, 109, 110; and 114, 142; self-contradiction, 127
nihilism, 110; Piggot Street, 112; sim­ self-actualization, self-realization, 128,
ulacrum of, 110; Southern poverty, 149, 150, 153, 184
98, 99; urban poverty, 98, 110, 112 self-criticism, self mocking, self-parody,
Prefontaine, Steve, 58, 176 36, 41, 42, 63, 76, 77, 82, 87, 88, 170
Press for Change, 11, 183 self-referential, 41, 48, 65; media-refer­
Protestantism, 1 48-149, 152, 157; and ential, 41, 74, 75, 81, 88
asceticism, 157, 159; Puritan ethic, self-reflexivity, 2, 3, 41, 44, 49, 50, 77, 78;
159 about commodification, 36, 44;
public culture, 66, 133, 1 71 , 1 73, ironic awareness, 42, 75, 176; jokes
183-184; advertising as public space, and humor, 36-37, 42, 48-49, 50-5 1 ,
183-184; comic public sphere, 78, 65, 74-77, 88-89, 142, 1 76; about
88-89; counterpublics, 84; Nike as mass media, 121; and Nike advertis­
provocateur of public debate, 3, 85, ing critiques, - about advertising
1 33-135; and public discourse, 3, and its formulas, 3, 33, 40-42, 44, 75,
1 71-173, 1 78, 1 84-185; sports and 77, 123, 176; poking fun at itself, 36,
male public culture, 66; see also black 63, 1 76;
public sphere self-reflexivity, cant., ret1exivity lite, 89;
self-ret1exive wink, 52; tone of play­
race, 54-56, 94, 97, 100, 1 06-107, 109, fulness, 88
113, 114, 1 74; and codes of social senior citizens, 150-152
class, 55, 56, 100; as a free-floating Sennett, Richard, 159
signifier, 116; post-racial icon, 115; sign value, 1, 13-15, 16, 18, 53, 58, 75,
and representations of blackness, 53, 1 69, 179; and anti-value, 82; building
54-55, 101-102, 1 06-107; and repre­ sign value, 70; and circulation, 16;
sentations of whiteness, as deconstruction by sportswriters,
unmarked category, 101 182; and hero worship, 167; int1a­
racism, 30, 55, 56, 107, 112-113, 115, 179 tion, 1, 1 79; and Jordan, 64; logo
rebel advertising, 81, 176, identification, 18; production, 2,
Reebak, 18, 58, 65, 68, 101-102, 1 24-125, 14-15, 24-25; profanation and repro­
137, 159, 170-171, 176, 1 83; and icon, duction, 82-83, 9 1 ; and public
18, 170 discourse, 179; and risk, 153;

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sign value, COl1 t., and sign economy, 1, Swoosh, the, cont., brand identity, 46;
2, 3, 4, 9, 143; and sign work, 18; of and its contradictions, 183-185; as
the swoosh, 27-28, 79, 183 currency, 15; and deconstruction,
sign wars, 16, 26, 137, 170 1 82-183; as global icon, 175; Hall of
signifier/signified, 14, 25, 57, 59, 60, 68, Fame of American icons, 18; and
71, 97, 103, 110, 115, 155, 157, 165, legitimacy, 91, 137; as logo, 1, 15, 17,
1 67; dangling signifier, 60; defini­ 43, 75, 81, 165; as magnet for opposi­
tion, 35; differentiation, 156; empty tion, 178, 183; as narrative, 43; ori­
signifier, 78; floating signifiers, 25, gins of, 16-18; oversaturation and
116, 167; hyperinflated signifier, 48; devaluation, 1 77-178, 183-184; as
hyperrealism, 69; hypersignifiers, piggy bank, 169; as premiere sign,
115; music, 97, 155-156, 165; surplus 14, 75; profanation and desecration,
signifiers, 60 3, 81, 82-83, 91; as punctuation, 43,
simulacrum, 31-32, 40, 110 44, 83; as raw meat, 82; recognition
slogans, 1 , 35, 42, 56, 71; absent, 98; of, 79-80; as sign of totem group,
anti-Nike, 184; anti-slogans, 43; "Just 142; and sign value, 27-28, 59, 81; as
Do It," 1, 19, 47, 68, 75, 80, 87, 88, 96, signature, 28, 32-33, 37, 39; and
128, 137, 143; "{ Can," 184; and slo­ signing 42, 138; and swooshification,
ganeering, 78; vulnerable to attack, 177; as symbolic capital, 169; and
1 83-184 symbolic politics, 1 79- 185; unified
sneakerization, 5, 15 or global symbol, 14, 59
Soloflex, 66, 151-152
the spectacle, 32, 41, 42, 66, 67, 77, 78, therapeutic ethos /voice, 36, 66, 119-
89,164, 1 66-167, 179; anti-spectacle, 120, 127-129, 147-148, 150, 152-153,
32, 128; critiquing the spectacle, 41, 162; nature as therapeutic space, 162
167; the logic of the spectacle, 42, 44, Title IX, 119, 138
156, 178; spectacularization and transcendence, 3, 19, 47, 50, 62, 67, 71,
sport, 36, 62, 63 94-100, 146, 149-153, 155, 157, 162-
spectators owners/buyers, 35, 122; 167, 174, 184; and American tran­
alienated, 3, 86, 97; awe, 166; chal­ scendentalism, 1 62-163; of human
lenging the spectator's position, 86; spirit, 97; and immanence, 9, 149-
distrust of tv ads, 40; sophistication, 1 50, 152, 163, 165; and music, 95; of
40; as tourist, 159; see also viewers poverty, 109, 112; and sports, 71, 96,
spirituality, 62, 146-153, 162-167; ACe 111, 176
campaign, 162-165; irreverent spiri­
tuality, 147; and nature, 164; and sal­ vernacular, 101-103, 105-109, 1 77;
vation, 1 03; and sport, 62; and African-American, 103, 1 05-109; and
theology of self, 128 the dialectics of cultural capital, 1 09;
sports, as discourse, morality and ide­ as resistance to domination, 105
ology, 20, 48, 66-70, 80, 148, 150, 152, viewers; cultural capital, 35, 37; inter­
159, 162, 174, 175, 177 pretation/ interpretive labor, 28, 36,
sports subcultures, 36-40 59-60, 96, 134, 136; jaded, 3, 34;
Staley, Dawn, 139-140 savvy, knowing and media-literate
Stoudamire, Damon, 59, 60 subjects, 26, 27, 74, 86, 90; resent­
Swoopes, Sheryl, 57, 138, 139-140; Air ment and resistance, 25, 40, 9 1
Swoopes, 129
Swoosh, the, 1-5, 10, 14-15, 16-18, 27- Weber, Max, 148-149, 161; bureaucracy,
28, 42, 58, 67, 79, 82, 87, 96, 146, 169, 162, 163-164; disenchantment, 161,
176, 183-185; and authenticity, 177; 164; rationalization, 161-162;

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Weber, Max, cont., re-enchantment, 164 WNBA, 119, 138, 139, 142
Wieden, Dan, 74, 171 Woods, Tiger, 1 1 3-115, 1 82; as multira­
Wieden & Kennedy, 1, 3, 26-27, 34, 44, cial, 114; as post-racial icon, 115; as
48, 58, 66, 69, 74-75, 77-78, 81, 83, 86, signifier of universality, 114-115; as
96, 134, 152, 1 70, 1 76; see also Nike a transcendent self, 115
philosophy
Williamson, Judith, 45, 57, 6�1, 127 X-Games, 39, 154, 160, 177
winking, 43, 1 76; ironic winking, 42, 74,
77, 86; and irreverence, 90; knowing Young, Andrew, 12, 180
wink, 40, 42, 64, 79, 86, 89; self­
reflexive wink, 52

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