AdMiration feature: Nike's "Am I A Bad Person?"

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we researched Nike’s “Am I A Bad Person?” - Winning Isn’t For Everyone. They created the ad as part of their campaign for this year’s Paris Olympic & Paralympic Games. 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens with a close-up of a young athlete looking fiercely at the camera as the voiceover, narrated by Willem Dafoe, asks the question: “Am I a bad person?”

The ad moves on to other close-up shots of athletes considered to be some of the best in their field like Lebron James, Kylian Mbappé and A’ja Wilson, among others, competing in their sport. 

The voiceover continues “I’m single minded. I’m deceptive. I’m obsessive. I’m selfish. Does that make me a bad person?” The viewer sees more moments from world-class athletes giving it their all, while the voiceover continues to disclose their inner thoughts around not being satisfied, driving for power and lacking remorse as Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 intensifies in the background. 

Throughout the clips, the voiceover asks repeatedly “Am I a bad person? Tell me. Am I?” When Symphony No.9 reaches its iconic grand crescendo, the audience witnesses moments of joy and success for the athletes they’ve been watching during the ad in which they score points, win matches and beat their opponents. 

The ad concludes with a message on screen saying “winning isn’t for everyone,” followed by some final close-up shots of the athletes and a red Nike swoosh on a black background. 

3 facts

• Nike’s ad is highly polarizing, landing it a sales and brand impact score in line with the norm for US ads and seeing contrasting performance among different demographics. 

• It engages with the audience emotionally, with some left feeling more negatively about it than the average ad but a vast majority feeling significantly more love compared to the norm. 

• Despite how polarizing it is, it’s highly captivating from start to finish and outperforms other ads in distinctiveness and viral potential.

2 learnings

• It’s easy for a brand to lose track of its original tone of voice and ethos in advertising when trying to deliver something new and keep up with competitors over the years. Reinstating your original approach to communication, where it was successful and still resonant, can be a great comeback, but it is essential that your brand assets still shine as protagonists in the execution. 

• Having a solid consumer insight as the core of your creative idea is a very important starting point. How this insight is brought to life in the details of the execution will have the ultimate say on how the audience interprets it, responds to it and ultimately feels about your brand. 

1 reflection

Being bold and shaking up your communication approach can be a highly successful move, particularly if your brand is losing share to other players. However, it’s important to consider that boldness won’t necessarily land universally. Understanding your target audience and ensuring your approach will appeal to them is key.

In recent years, Nike has been massively challenged by growing players in the sportswear category stealing market share while the brand has struggled to see growth. Still strong and clear, the brand image and tone of voice has been diluted compared to what it used to be in the 1990s and 2000s when Nike had a huge edge, being bold and daring by standing for victory and the path to get there. 

The “Winning Isn’t For Everyone” campaign rekindles the old Nike spark that made it such a challenger brand; aiming to go back to its original messaging and tone of voice in which the brand revered great athletes, often in a provocative way. In rebellious fashion, in the 1996 Olympics Nike famously said “You don’t win silver. You lose gold”; and this campaign certainly has that same energy to it.

“This is about celebrating the voice of the athlete,” Nicole Graham, Chief Marketing Officer at Nike, Inc. shared. “It’s a story about what it takes to be the best. The legacies that have yet to be shaped. And the dreams that will be made real. It reminds the world that there's nothing wrong with wanting to win.”

You can read more about the campaign here.

Very much like the campaign name ‘Winning Isn’t For Everyone,’ Nike’s latest ad isn’t for everyone either!

The ad scores in line with the norm for US ads in potential to drive short-term sales (sales impact: 35) and in potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales (brand impact: 46). It’s highly polarizing; while some people truly don’t understand it or find its approach quite negative, others find it brilliant and inspiring.

There’s a clear divide in age groups and how the ad is perceived. Among adults over 45 years old, the ad scores in the bottom 30% of US ads on sales impact (27) and brand impact (25), while among young adults between 18-36 the ad fairs much better, particularly in brand impact, scoring in the top 30% of ads (brand impact 18-36yo: 70). 

The levels of enjoyment of the ad are night and day when you compare the reactions from older and younger adults. While over three quarters of young adults said they enjoyed the ad (enjoyment 18-36yo: 4.1 vs 3.9 norm), only 59% of older adults said the same compared to a norm of 68% for the average US ad (enjoyment +45yo: 3.4 vs 3.9 norm). 

People who claim to practice the sports depicted in the ad regularly, like tennis, running or wrestling, also enjoyed the ad significantly more than the average person. Among this group, 86% said they enjoyed Nike’s “Am I A Bad Person?”, with almost two thirds of those who enjoyed it saying they enjoyed it a lot (enjoyment ‘sports enthusiasts’: 4.3 vs 3.9 norm).

The ad did a brilliant job at engaging with the audience emotionally. While more people were left feeling negatively (dislike reaction: 9% vs 3% norm) or confused (confusion reaction: 6% vs 3% norm) compared to the average for a US ad, an overwhelming majority responded with a ‘love’ emoji when asked how they felt about it overall (love reaction: 41% vs 28% norm).

Once again, there was a big contrast in how different types of people reacted to the ad on an emotional level. The ad performed significantly better on ‘overall emotion’ among younger adults and people who regularly practice the sports depicted, as these groups were much more likely to feel positively about it. 

Conversely, older adults were more likely to feel negatively about the ad, with 15% reacting to the ad with a dislike emoji, accounting for two thirds of the total dislike reactions. 

Despite how polarizing it is, it’s a highly captivating ad that manages to grab people’s attention and retain it throughout (claimed attention: 4.1 vs 3.9 norm). Ads that exceed the 60 second mark or even the 45 second mark in length tend to see quite a significant drop off in viewership, ending up with a percentage of people who watch the whole ad significantly below the norm for the respective country. Even at 90 seconds long, Nike’s ad performed in line with the country norm on the ‘watched full ad’ metric, with 86% of respondents not skipping through versus 89% for the average US ad. 

It’s also undeniably distinctive, significantly outperforming the norm for US ad (ad distinctiveness: 4.0 vs 3.8 norm) and has great viral potential with respondents feeling like it would get shared online by more people than average (viral potential: 61.2 vs 55.9 norm).

Celebrating the voice of the athlete and telling a story of what it takes to be the best —  mentally and physically — and the unapologetic competitive spirit of Nike’s ad rubs some people the wrong way. A number of respondents deemed it “aggressive,” with some really disliking the delivery of the voiceover.

The fact that Willem Dafoe is the narrator, and is notoriously known for playing the Green Goblin in the Spiderman movies, caused some people to misunderstand the narrative as overly negative and deeming athletes to be bad people. Another issue respondents saw in the narrative was how repetitive it felt in such a long ad. 

Nevertheless, most people actually saw the positive in the ad. They praised the high quality of the visuals, the diversity featured in the ad, the passion conveyed by the narrator and the overall epic and motivational tone. 

Here’s what people said they liked about it: 

• "I liked the narrative that was being spoken behind the commercial that implied no matter what people think they will fight to be the best. I like that they use the best athletes in their field."

• "I loved the graphics, the background music and the voice. I also love the athletes shown in the ads, and the various sports covered in the ad."

• "I like the inclusiveness of the ad. Many sports, races and both genders are included. It's a fun ad showing athletes competing at their best."

• "I loved the concept of the narration and the message that had come across, as well as the imagery of the athletes while the narrator describes the “bad” traits."

• "I love all the determination and hard work it shows. It shows if you really put your heart and soul into it you can achieve anything you want in this life. The ad also gives me inspiration to chase my dreams and never give up no matter what, just do it."

• "I liked everything. I like that it shows you have to strive constantly to be the best you can be and this is part of my personal beliefs."

It’s a very bold move from Nike — returning to its roots and focusing on the spirit of winning in a world where wanting to win is seen as a losing game.

The brand itself was named after the Greek goddess of victory for a reason and this is where the core of Nike’s brand ethos lies. There is passion, grit, selfishness and determination in the pursuit of victory. In celebrating this pursuit and what is behind it, Nike aimed to inspire people to chase their goals unapologetically and differentiate itself from its competitors who have been gaining market share. 

While confusing for some, the message about embracing the competitive spirit and striving for greatness is understood and taken away by a great proportion of the audience. When asked what the ad was trying to say, people said:

• "That winning isn't for everyone and you've got to be tough in order to win."

• "To be the best you gotta work for it."

• "That it's possible if you keep going at it. Don't quit. Power is in your body."

• “That to be the best you have to be driven and selfish, single minded, but it doesn't mean you're a bad person.”

• “You can be your best with Nike, it's for everyone: the selfish, the competitive ones; everyone.”

• “It's an inclusive brand with clothes for all different sports, activities and athletes. Nike encourages you to be the best.”

Naturally, to land a strong brand message and reestablish your tone of voice, it’s imperative that consumers recognize your brand. While the Nike brand assets including the ‘swoosh’ have been established for decades, the brand presence in the video ad was underwhelming as just under 60% of people remembered the brand compared to a US norm of 68% for unaided brand recall. 

The static ads that are part of the wider campaign, while conveying the same message, do a much better job of conveying the brand through the huge logo, bold lettering and iconic ‘Just Do It’ slogan. 

This was certainly a very polarizing ad from Nike with much to learn from! 

What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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