Did You Learn Anything, Tiger?

Wow. Nike's first Tiger Woods-centric commercial since everyone's opinion of the golf great drastically changed last fall has surfaced. They aren't brushing scandal under the rug. They have Tiger staring the audience in the eye, while the voice of his late father asks him if he's learned anything. I'm absolutely fascinated by this approach. I find it really powerful. Surprisingly, I don't view it from my regular cynical standpoint. I have lost a lot of respect for Tiger Woods in the last few months, even though I must admit that his personal life is really none of my business. Even so, I really do appreciate the message of facing your demons and learning from your mistakes that this commercial conveys. Nike's standing by their man, espousing responsibility for one's actions. Somehow it almost makes me want to cheer for Tiger's triumphant return. I never would have guessed that a Nike commercial would make me feel this way.

Friday Breakthrough: Olympic Edition Part One

The Friday Breakthough is Ottawa’s weekly roundup of some of the Internet’s best marketing and social media articles for a less-than-intense day at the office. For the duration of the Winter Olympic Games, the Friday Breakthrough will be dedicated to reviewing The Good, The Bad and The “What Were They Thinking?!” of the marketing of the Vancouver Olympics.

Part One: The Good

1. Nike’s Force Fate

Nike nails it with “Force Fate”. No commercial in recent memory better captures the attitude of our determined athletes. And what about those golden expectations? Their defiant retort: “Destiny doesn’t decide if we win. We do.” Wicked line. Pow! They hit you in the gut with that. The music is killer, too. It’s a crank-up-your-ipod-I’m-gonna-run-10miles-flat-out kind of song. Honestly, if this spot doesn’t get you psyched up for Team Canada Hockey at Olympics, I don’t know what will.

If there’s one downfall for the commercial, it’s how pretty it looks. It’s shot beautifully, which makes me wish that it wasn’t. The attitude of this spot is so gritty that it leaves me wanting imagery that matches. Give me raw footage of practice; with sweat everywhere, whistles blowing, coaches yelling, and the heavy breathing of athletes pushing themselves past their breaking point. Now that is some serious “destiny” butt kicking. That would be the ultimate “Force Fate”.

2. CTV’s Believe, narrated by Donald Sutherland and set to the music of Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore.

Now I am a self-confessed Olympic junkie who loves those touchy-feely athlete profile stories that tug at your heart strings, but I have to say CTV has done a nice job with their promo spots. Donald Sutherland has the perfect pitch to carry the tone of the Canadian Olympic dream and adding in the music from the guy who won an Oscar for his work on the Lord of The Rings trilogy isn’t too shabby either.

Although I love the spots that profile our athletes, I am not such a fan of the other “Believe” spots that feature young Canadians. The thought is right and the message is right, but somehow it doesn’t feel authentic. It doesn’t pull at my heartstrings and it seems forced, like I know those kids were fed those lines. Canadian kids do have Olympic dreams and they’ll tell you about them, but I just don’t buy that they would tell you in the way that CTV is presenting. So overall, they got it right with Donald Sutherland, but they dropped the ball on the spots featuring the kids.

3. IOC (International Olympic Committee) – The Best of Us

This IOC spot with the cartooned athletes from the different continents in their respective Olympic gear. In the spot, these enormous cartooned athletes are standing on top of their home continents and each have a rope. They pull hard until they bring all the continents together. The different continents coming together is like a visual interpretation of the Olympic rings – emphasized by the continental colours. It’s imaginative, memorable and fun to watch. Kudos to the IOC!

Stay tuned for next week’s Friday Breakthrough. It’s gonna be ugly. I mean bad. Actually, Olympic marketing bad. Ok. You get the idea.

Check Out the New Nike Ad Directed by David Fincher

Remember when David Fincher made Fight Club?

Apparently he's pretty good at making Nike ads, too.

This one is part of a series called LEAVE NOTHING



Watch it at Youtube.

There are more, too. Here's another LEAVE NOTHING Nike Ad. And another.

The theme for this one is from Ennio Morricone. In fact, it's a remixed version of the theme for "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."

Personally, I think the video is great. It captures an emotion and ties it to Nike's brand beautifully. I enjoy most of their motivation-oriented videos. They work together extremely well. Even though I suspect that most Nike customers don't train the way the athletes in the videos do, I would bet that most of them fight to motivate themselves to train that hard, or have a serious appreciation for those who do.

Nike captures those feelings better than its competitors. It speaks to rather than at its audience. And judging by the popularity of the video on YouTube, it's doing its job virally - getting passed on from blogger to blogger and person to person, all at no extra cost to Nike.

A thank you to AdRANTS' RSS feed for pointing me to the initial link to the video.