AdMiration feature: Nike’s “Stairs”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to Nike’s “Stairs” ad. The ad is part of the brand’s new “Winning Isn’t Comfortable” campaign targeted at runners. 

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 to a scene of a busy street corner, with “Love Hurts” by Nazareth playing in the background. A man in a suit is seen amid the crowd, struggling to walk along and reach the sidewalk, followed by a scene of another man slowly struggling down a set of park stairs. 

Similar scenes take place, showing a young woman bracing herself against guardrails to walk and another older woman having difficulty sitting down. As the ad progresses, it becomes apparent that each of the people shown are wearing Nike sneakers. The scene shifts to a man in a taxi listening to the radio, which is announcing, “And this one is for everyone who ran the marathon yesterday. Hope you’re doing okay out there.” 

Another staircase struggle scene is shown, as the song’s chorus blasts louder and the words “Winning isn’t comfortable” paired with the Nike swoosh appear across the screen. 

3 facts

• Nike’s “Stairs” resonates better with some audiences than others, achieving a sales and brand impact score in line with other US ads (at average) among the broad audience and a much stronger performance among a younger audience, people who are more active and runners. One reason is that not everyone clearly understands the “inside joke” of some debilitation after running a marathon, particularly those 55 and older.

• Despite this, “Stairs” is a unique story which stands out as highly distinctive and relevant to all viewers.

• The story creates a diverse emotional journey, evoking love, like and laughter as well as some sadness. Emotional engagement is even stronger among the younger audience (18-35 year old’s) who get the humor and have pronounced laughter at key moments in the story.

2 learnings

• Music choice can help make or break an ad, so it’s important to choose it wisely and ensure it fits with the story and brand. In this case the song “Love Hurts” is a great choice to help convey the pain and soreness runners have after a marathon, is well liked and contributes to the humor.

• When embarking on a newer campaign style and tone, people may not associate the new style with your brand as readily, so it is important that your brand and historical brand assets shine through in the execution.

1 reflection

When you are a large brand in a broad category (like sports apparel), consider how varied executions within the same overarching campaign idea, in this case “Winning Isn’t Comfortable”, can work among subsets of your audience. By segmenting the audience by how it reaches and resonates with people, you can use a tighter insight that resonates and creates a stronger connection with this group, which can be difficult to achieve among a very broad audience.

Nike’s “Stairs” ad is the fourth chapter under their new ‘Winning Isn’t Comfortable’ campaign that was rolled out for marathon season, directed by MEGAFORCE with creative from Wieden+Kennedy Portland. 

This new campaign also serves as a second installment to their ‘Winning Isn’t For Everyone’ campaign, which we covered in a previous AdMiration article.  

The ad covered in this article, Stairs, follows on from the campaign’s three initial installments: ‘Sunshine’, ‘Morning’ and ‘Joy.’

All four ads under the new campaign will run globally through marathon season, both digitally and across billboards and stores.

The new “Stairs” ad is well-timed with numerous fall marathons in full swing and taps into a very relevant insight for marathoners and their families, friends and supporters. 

This campaign has average potential to drive sales (Sales Impact: 53) and brand equity (Brand Impact: 54) among a broad audience, and is in the top 35% in potential to build brand equity for Nike among those 35 and under.

One of the reasons “Stairs” performs better among those 18-35 and runners is that they better understand the ad and the insight that “winning isn’t always comfortable” so they can relate to it much more than those 55 and older.

Overall, Nike’s “Stairs” has elements that work well, particularly among the younger audience of 18-35, those who are more active and runners, but other elements that limit potential, especially among those 55 and older.

What drives performance?

What works well is that Nike has clearly tapped into a resonant insight  and execution. Viewers find the story of people struggling to walk or sit down after running the marathon highly distinctive and relevant. This creates strong brand appeal for Nike and is even more pronounced among people who are more active as well as runners as they relate to the inside joke and understand the “pride” of earning the soreness.

With a clearer understanding among 18-35 yo’s, purchase uplift is also higher among this group versus those 55+ (increases by 16% from pre to post purchase vs 8% for those 55+).

One of the things that makes “Stairs” distinctive is the style of the ad with its more subtle humor — demonstrating how difficult it is for marathoners to perform normal tasks after race day and that “winning isn’t comfortable.”  This makes the ad enjoyable (4.0 mean score vs. 3.9 norm) and evokes an emotional connection. Although some people are confused, “Stairs” evokes strong laughter and surprise compared to other US ads.

What works well is the diverse emotional journey viewers experience throughout the story with a range of love, like, laughter and occasional sadness as they watch people trying to function the day after the marathon. 

This is even more pronounced among those 18-35 who better understand the inside joke. More specifically, the “Love Hurts” song and initial set up scenes evoke love and likes and people find the scenes of the man and woman painfully walking down the stairs and the woman struggling to sit down funny, though also a bit sad. Likes peak at the reveal scene with the voice-over of “hope everyone is doing ok out there after yesterday’s marathon” and the screenshot near the end with the Nike swoosh that says “Winning isn’t comfortable.” 

Many of the same elements that emotionally engage people are also aspects they spontaneously mention when asked what they like about the execution. They particularly like that “Stairs” is funny, the scenarios of the what it takes to run a marathon and the aftermath, the diversity and relevance of the people portrayed, the taxi driver’s reaction to the announcer congratulating the marathon runners, as well as the “Love Hurts” song that helps bring the story to life. 

Here’s what people say they liked:

• "It was endearing to see all these people hobbling around after they had been doing something that they clearly loved."

• "It was great because it made you curious to see why these people were having such a hard time walking."

• "The ad is amusing, relatable, showing real people who are active."

• "I like that. It showed different people in different sizes that ran the marathon."

• "I liked the taxi driver's reaction to the radio announcer talking about the marathon runners from the day before."

• "It was good, it showed the pain of winning."

• "I thought the concept was very funny of people in pain and the song playing."

• "The music was funny playing with them walking down the steps in pain."

• "It was pretty funny and genius with the soundtrack selection."

Not only is the music liked, but it plays a pivotal role in the ad working effectively. It has strong appeal (musical appeal mean score 4.1 vs 3.8 norm),  conveys the underlying message that “it hurts to run” and is timed perfectly to scenes showing the pain and discomfort runners experience after the marathon. 

Although there are many elements that work for “Stairs”, not everybody likes or understands Nike’s new spot. The key issues are that viewers don’t all understand the storyline or inside joke and some find it confusing, particularly because the punchline and brand aren’t revealed until almost the end of the ad.  

Here’s what some respondents had to say: 

• "Couldn't figure out what the ad was about until the end."

• "I liked the whole ad except I was confused about what the overall message was supposed to be. Now that I know the message, I like the ad more."

• "Totally confusing ad, seems to imply that Nike sneakers are uncomfortable which is totally inaccurate in my experience with the brand."

• "I thought it was somewhat disrespectful to people who are having difficulty walking up and down stairs."

While a late brand reveal can work effectively, this can be more challenging for a brand with a new campaign where the tone and style are yet to be established as a strong brand cue. Viewer retention is average, but there are a number of people who are no longer watching when the brand is more prominently revealed towards the end of the spot. This results in only 55% (vs. 68% norm) of viewers recalling that this is a spot for Nike after watching it in a clutter of other ads, limiting its overall breakthrough potential. 

Nike is staying true to representing the voice and feelings of athletes in the “Winning Isn’t for Everyone” campaign. The “Stairs” execution does this beautifully for a specific group of people, particularly those who are more athletic and younger. These groups feel more included because they get and can relate to the “in joke” that people are smug and happy with not being able to walk after a marathon because “winning isn’t comfortable”.  It works well as part of a wider campaign which can also help resonate with broader audiences outside of the running, more active and younger communities and yet still be different expressions of the same idea.

Nike’s new “Winning Isn’t Comfortable” marathon campaign gets the idea right. The ”Stairs” execution works well overall, particularly among 18-35 year olds who better understand the idea and punchline of WHY love hurts. The spot also works well as part of the broader campaign, including billboards and other social assets that say “If you don’t hate running a little, you don’t love running enough.” As runners (of both marathons and ultras!) Nike is spot on. After all, winning isn’t comfortable! 

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

To make sure you never miss one of our AdMiration analyses, subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter.