by Larry Eder
Nike Air? The Secret is finally revealed in this video, which showed up on You Tube March 10 and has just under 200,000 views so far! When Nike is on, they are truly on, and the spoof is well done here, down to some of my favorite details….
Nike Air first showed in Nike products in the 1979 season, if my memory does not fail me. In running, it was the Tailwind. I remember training in the Columbia and racing in the Mariah during the summer of 1980.
Since its first introduction, people have been wondering about Nike Air. What really is Nike Air? Is it something special? Was it, dare say, Soylent Green? (Oh, go rent the movie with Charlton Heston!). Well, Nike takes it to the nth, and tells the TRUTH–Nike Air is the captured air of Nike’s elite athletes! The video goes to great lengths, showing a basketball player shot into the rafters due to the power of Nike Air.
Using some of the greatest Nike athletes of this era, the Nike “spokes person” (David Koechner, who played Todd Packer in Office, Champ in Anchorman, and before that, remember him from SNL?) lets the viewer in on the secret: Nike has been collecting the actual air from athletes in large tanks around Nike. Koechner is the perfect shoe nerd, and he does his best to make the video believable!
My favorites? The scene with Carl Lewis taking a name tag and putting a Carl Lewis name tag on Sanya Richards’ air was priceless. Paula Radcliffe is shown there, running away, as is Maria Sharapova, the amazing tennis player. I did like the sounds that Maria’s shoe makes BEFORE and AFTER her volleys.
Well done, fun, and tongue in cheek, this is Nike advertising at its best. Poking fun at oneself, Nike allows the athletes, who Nike champions, to be, well, human. In it’s humor, Nike athletes become human, they just happen to run, jump or throw a bit faster than you or I.
Nike makes the “secret” a well-executed video that puts a smile on the face of many viewers, including this one.
Nice job, Nike.
