In
chapter seven, Serendipity: “Got Milk?,” Steel presents the entire Got
Milk? advertising campaign from start to finish in order to illustrate his
points presented earlier in the text. In chapters nineteen and twenty, Bruce
discusses briefly putting campaign together and the future of the industry.
Bruce mentions in chapter nineteen
that his mother-in-law would say, “come big or stay home,” and he found this principle
to apply well to advertising. In a field that is cluttered with ads everywhere,
a campaign must find a way to stand out and go against the main stream. I
decided to analyze this principle with a great campaign, “Just Do It.”
It is hard to imagine brands and not
to think of Nike. This brand has positioned itself as number one for so many years;
it is definitely hard to imagine when it was not. But back in the 80s, Reebok
was giving Nike a run for its money. During this time Reebok was selling more
tennis shoes than Nike. And although Nike was catering to almost exclusively marathon
runners, they understood the importance of expanding. They needed to come up
with a campaign that was revolutionary and that would re-position Nike. The
slogan was created and the campaign launched around 1988 and sales increased tremendously.
The appeal that separated Nike from the
rest was the slogan that touched a human truth and connected with them emotionally.
As humans, we are unsure of the unknown and like to keep things safe and not
change. But sometimes in order to grow as person and mature, we have to risk
some things, take a chance and just gamble it. Nike understood this and
encapsulated the push we sometimes need to grow in a few simple words, “just do
it.” That push is what reminds many people from Olympians to middle-school
volleyball players, to just take that risk and do it. In a crucial time for its
business, Nike was able to push forward and “come big,” instead of “go home.”
And its success has demonstrated that drive.
