Nike’s New Lebron James Commercial Fits The Right Foot
For the second time this year, Nike busted out a commercial that it hopes will rejuvenate an athletes’ career.
On Tuesday, Nike featured an ad during the Miami Heat season debut. It featured LeBron James asking the audience, media, and everyone else that criticized his ‘decision’ to Cleveland ” what should I do,? while posing as numerous characters outside the profession of basketball.
Click below to watch the ad:
When Tiger Woods’ sex-capade was revealed back in November 2010, the media world, fans alike exposed Woods. Nike, in attempt to make Woods seem humanistic, someone who makes mistakes, unleashed a commercial several months later, days before he got back on the golf course. The commercial eerily featured Woods’ dad, Earl, as a voice over, speaking to his son, asking him if he has learned anything through the whole process ( the voice over was from a different conversation Earl had with his son when he was alive)
Click to watch below:
While there is no measuring stick to see if the commercial actually worked, most media analysis of the commercial that I read disapproved of the commercial.
FanHouse’s Greg Couch didn’t buy the ad’s message:
“How dumb do Woods and Nike think we are? They are banking — and that’s the exact right word — on the idea that we will fall for their act again,” Couch argued.
Couldn’t agree more. While the ad was touching, it wasn’t sincere because it smelled as if Nike came up with the ad. It was there thoughts, there idea, their product that they needed to restore at all costs. It just didn’t come off as genuine.
Genuine, on the other hand was what the James’ commercial came off as. One hundred percent. On the surface, it got me thinking about all the hits I took on James this summer. The truth is, what should he have done? The choice was his. It ultimately is his life and who are we to question.
But more than anything, it hit me on a different level. The genuine one. The fact that he used Nike’s platform, in this case a commercial, not to re-shape his image, not to make us think how sorry he is, or how much he loved Cleveland and how the choice was so tough for him and that he truly is a loyal cat. But to simply say, ‘ this is what I chose to do, it’s my life, I have no regrets and I am moving forward.’ ‘ What Should I do, should I be who you want me to be?” James asks at the end of the commercial.
In other words, I did what I wanted to do, not what you wanted me to do.
” Should I not listen to my friends?” James asked, undoubetdly since many argued that he got bad advice from his entourage this summer. ” But there my friends,” James argues in the ad. And how many of us make every decision without consulting others?
All we ask our athletes is to be honest, upfront and authentic. I, for one, hated James decision, because I wanted him to win it in Cleveland. I thought he sold himself short, bla, bla, bla.
But at least the King was upfront and didn’t come off as if Nike, or somebody else was dictating the ad. Certainly can’t say the same for Woods. Or that old man up in Minnesota.
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