Nike Ad Analysis

I grew up playing sports. I loved getting a runner’s high or coming home after an intense volleyball practice. Though as a girl, I always felt pressured to be slim and that really hit my freshman year of high school but I started an unhealthy cycle of binging and purging. My self-esteem was a roller-coaster along with how happy I was with myself. It began to control me. I withdrew myself from the most important thing to me, my friends and family. My grades that year were an all-time low for me as well. I thank my mom for caring enough about me to seek help.

I first saw this series of advertisements in 2006 in a Teen Vogue magazine a few months after I was finally reaching the recovery stage. They grabbed my attention immediately. I quickly ripped them out to save them because they had inspired me so much. I felt like it was finally someone telling me it was okay to enjoy working out, that an athletic toned body is seen as beautiful and it’s embraced. Today I have two of them in pictures frames hung on my wall. There are 4 different advertisements created by Nike that are very similar. They each have a similar abstract watercolor background with a close up an athletic woman’s body along with what I would consider a poem. One focuses on hips, another thunder thighs and the other two are on a woman’s butt and knees. My personal favorite is the thigh advertisement because I can relate to it the most.

I have thunder thighs.

And that's a compliment
because they are strong
and toned
and muscular.
And though they are not welcome
in the petite section
they are cheered on in marathons.
Fifty years from now
I'll bounce a grandchild on my thunder thigh
and then go for a run.

In today’s society models, celebrities, and movie stars resemble stick figures compared to the rest of the world who doesn’t have a personal trainer and chef at their side. Women believe if they lose weight, they will gain happiness or the only way they will be happy is if they are 3 dress sizes smaller. These advertisements go against what the media tell women about how they should look. Nike wanted to reach out to the active girls so they can finally accept the feel like society says it’s okay to have bigger biceps than the guy sitting next to you or that scars criss-crossing your knees from softball should be a sign of hard work. They believe it’s great to see your body as an unbelievable machine. They want females to finally have positive thoughts about their body.

My butt is big and round like the letter C. And ten thousand lunges have made it rounder but not smaller and that's just fine. 
It's a space heater for my side of the bed. It's my ambassador to those who walk behind me.
It's a boarder collie that herds skinny women away from the best deals at clothing stores. 
My butt is big and that's just fine and those who might scorn it are invited to kiss it.

The location of where the ads weren’t typical. Most advertisements in Teen Vogue consist of high end department stores or stores where buying one item would eat up an average person’s pay check. Most exercise related companies would only place their ads in a health and exercise magazine because that’s the one place where their message is accepted by 100% of the readers.

Nike wants the readers to change their mind set that it doesn’t take your jean size to determine if you are happy and healthy. Nike believes that a woman who exercises regularly and eats well-balanced meals as part of a healthy life-style are what we should be idolizing, not the verge of anorexia skinny super model body. These advertisements might be the beginning of a new era for the ideal female body. Marilyn Monroe has been an icon for decades yet she wore a size 12. Today in most clothing stores, a size 12 is the last regular size before a lady would have to jump to the plus size section. It is said that model Twiggy started the society’s spread for the need to be slim. In these times, women were supposed to be the housekeeper. They weren’t supposed to work hard and sweat. Times have changed; we now see it as a healthy acceptable lifestyle for a woman to hit up the gym a couple of times a week. Many reality TV shows follow the cast into the gym. They are promoting the healthy lifestyle to their viewers. I think all of these reasons are pushing America to soon define beautiful quite differently than in recent year.

This series of advertisements would consider someone who strives to push their body farther, someone who unconditionally loves their body, someone who doesn't feel the need to be dainty or someone who doesn't define happiness by what their shirt tag reads as successful. They show a new side of success across the globe. Hopefully other women are effected just as I was and will begin to love their body