Nike's Olympic Courage Ad

Friday, July 18, 2008

Obviously with the mass amount of ads that Nike produces not all are going to be winners but I think they've got another hit with this one. This is the "Courage" ad you'll be seeing all throughout the Olympics....



I'm a sucker for good music, a ton of athletes and random flowers blooming, so they had me at the jump. I'm curious if this type of ad is wearing on people or if you're enjoying them as much as me. In the past year we've had the "My Better" one, the Jackson/Merriman "Leave Nothing" one, and the Guy Ritchie "Next Level" one. Keep it coming Nike.

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 12:59 PM

19 Comments:

I like it but I think they could've chosen better music. I love the song but I don't think it quite fits. As sad as it is to say this about a commercial, for Nike, the song just isn't epic enough.

Jul 18, 2008, 1:20:00 PM  

That ad's Killer.

Anonymous said...
Jul 18, 2008, 1:29:00 PM  

It's a cool ad, but the message doesn't really make sense. The song, the video cut-ins, and the final "courage" tagline all have no clear connection to each other. I just don't get it.

Anonymous said...
Jul 18, 2008, 1:34:00 PM  

They chopped that song up too much, but it still did give me goosebumps.

Rahul said...
Jul 18, 2008, 1:44:00 PM  

Too much cutting of the clips I thought, granted they couldn't stretch things to two minutes, but longer clips of the sprinter being carried by his dad and other famous "goosebump" Olympic moments would have really made it. They tried to fit 100 images/clips into one minute and it didn't really captivate me.

Anonymous said...
Jul 18, 2008, 2:05:00 PM  

Oscar Pizturis (sp) was what made it for me at the end. awesome.

Tepid Epics said...
Jul 18, 2008, 2:49:00 PM  

I love this kind of advertisement. I'm a sucker for any advertisement with clips of sports triumphs and tribulations. Makes me semi-excited for the Olympics.

I'm not too sure why they had all the random clips of indigenous people dancing and buffaloes roaming the wild though.

frankingeneral said...
Jul 18, 2008, 3:11:00 PM  

Nike ads are the Rolling Stones (60's version) of commercials. Sure, they can be be interesting, but they're trying too hard to be relevant.

Now, as for the Beatles of commercials...well, no such thing exists.

Anonymous said...
Jul 18, 2008, 3:29:00 PM  

I'm with Matt on this one. It's just not as good as the other Nike commercials in this vein, because it lacks a narrative theme that made the other commercials work. It's also simply not as cool as the "Leave Nothing" or "Next Level" commercials.

Patrick said...
Jul 18, 2008, 4:04:00 PM  

I don't get video at work but I'm assuming that this ad is old footage of Ricky Davis shooting at the wrong rim to get a triple double. Now THAT was the definition of courage.

GMoney said...
Jul 18, 2008, 4:05:00 PM  

Good ad! it takes courage to flip a whole lot of times and land on your heard like that female gymnast. Ouch!

Anonymous said...
Jul 18, 2008, 6:35:00 PM  

Steve Prefontaine......

Anonymous said...
Jul 18, 2008, 9:53:00 PM  

Ugh, The Killers are The Dave Mathews Band of Emo. Wake me when the hipsters decide they've sold out.
Big step down from Gnarls Barkley.

Chip Bankhead said...
Jul 19, 2008, 11:32:00 AM  

"I've got soul... but I'm not a soldier" is a pretty lame play on words.

Otherwise, the commercial is nice, even if it's completely based on the myth the professional athletes are somehow heroic for playing sports.

rwmonty said...
Jul 19, 2008, 2:21:00 PM  

Good commercial. I was like some of the other commenters who thought it seemed like a mish mash of pictures and videos thrown together. But then I started to realize that many of the people shown were athletes who overcame something to make an impact (i.e. Armstrong and Jon Lester, both cancer survivors)

Anonymous said...
Jul 20, 2008, 2:19:00 AM  

I'd LOVE to know who the director is?

Anonymous said...
Jul 31, 2008, 12:10:00 PM  

Great commercial. The song is "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers.

Anonymous said...
Aug 10, 2008, 9:41:00 PM  

I thought it was well done. Maybe it was just me, but I thought the music was well-placed (and I usually hate the Killers, but this song isn't so bad).

Anonymous said...
Aug 11, 2008, 2:57:00 PM  

I loved it! By the final shot of the guy running with prosthetics I was cheering in my living room! Yeh some of the images were out there but Nike's taken it to the next level. This is cutting edge in my opinion as a professional still photographer.

Anonymous said...
Aug 18, 2008, 11:59:00 PM  

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