I gamely sat through two weeks of Olympic Games advertising. Whew!
Hats off to Lenovo Computers for not buying SuperBowl 2006 ad space and, instead, giving Olympics viewers some classy-looking images and powerful reasons to purchase the Chinese-made, former IBM, product. The calibre of the Lenovo advertising was pegged at too high a level of intelligence to appeal to the football crowd and, thus, would have been an unwise expenditure of promotion funds.
Anheuser-Busch, on the other hand, covered both of its demographic with two ad formats. The first format, showed the wonderful Clydesdale horses, touched America's sentimental soft spot. The second format, aimed precisely at the 21 – 40-year-old American male demographic, appealed to those folks of lower intelligence: the beer-pong male. And, to a lesser extent, women in the same age group. Budweiser served up the Clydesdales for the more sophisticated, mature demographic; while it served up Bud Lite for the stupid, ill-mannered, un-washed group of slobs. Profiled! Don't take my word for it; check it out. In fact, turn on the television and catch any Lite beer commercial for any brewer and see what intelligence level it aims for. Hey! Maybe Anheuser-Busch should bring out 'Bud Stupid' and knock off all pretenses.
Insurance... Allstate... two weeks of watching the same twosome trying to recapture what once was with their ice skating... pratfall... falling ice... crushed car. Tiring. Have you noticed in television ads that whenever someone (usually a guy) trips over something, falls down, crashes into a wall, etc., the first thing out of his mouth is, "I'm all right." Really? Does he happen to have a portable MRI scanner in his pocket? Besides... who cares? This is one case where I wished Allstate had made up maybe four commercial versions that would span the Olympic's two week running time. One version would have the man, after crashing into the barn, say, "Help! I think I broke something...." Then, the wife would walk over to the ice-crushed car, spitting out, "Oh, shit!"
The advertiser who I think took it on the chops was Nike. Nike made the unfortunate decision to back the wrong horse in the race of champions by placing their faith in Bode Miller, the downhill skiing non-event. I am not going to dance on Mr. Miller's grave because he failed at everything he attempted to do. Instead, I make the declaration that Mr. Miller should not have been a member of the U.S. Olympic Ski team to begin with. Bode is not a team player. He doesn't understand the concept of team play and repeatedly voiced his misguided misunderstanding numerous times throughout the duration of the Games. The young man is seriously detatched from reality and, by his own words I judge, Bode lives in his own world of fantasy.
Nike began the Olympics by providing Mr. Miller his own web presence, "Joinbode.com", where interested visitors could get in on Bode's thoughts - or non-thoughts - (Bode's words). So far, so good. Then, reality began settling in and Mr. Miller was not living up to the pre-Olympic hype where NBC was touting the U.S. team as something akin to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with their records and potential to annihilate the international opposition.
As the two weeks progressed, the U.S. ski team depressed. Dark horses on the U.S. team managed to stage upsets, but the downhill big money guys indicated early they were having trouble. Mr. Miller had the most trouble. Did Nike pull the Join Bode site? Nope. Did Nike representatives have a serious talk with Bode, the purpose being to give him an emergency attitude adjustment? Not so far as we could tell from the news, and not so far as was evidenced by any kind of improved performance. Can anyone venture a plausible answer as to why a skier, with one redemptive last event to ski, would go out and play basketball (he twisted an ankle), and stay up late at night partying? It's almost if we were watching a Greek tragedy where the antihero was intentionally trying to doom the cause.
During the Games, when Mr. Miller was interviewed, he clearly gave the impression that winning wasn't his prime purpose, but to have the skiing experience and take chances with risky maneuvers. Okay, I can be as much of a Zen purist as the next guy, but when called to be a member of a team, I will comport myself as a member of a team and not as a solo hotdogging, self-centered rebel. Again, Mr. Miller should not have been selected for the U.S. ski team, and Nike should not have placed itself in the position of backing a truly bad attitude where sports is concerned. Nike should have pulled 'joinbode.com' early on and converted it to 'join-anyone-who-had-guts-and-drive-enough-to-compete-their-heart-out.com'.
Tom Brokaw interviewed Mr. Miller during the last portion of the Games on Sunday night. Again, it was obvious that Bode was cut from the cloth of a non-winner, non-team participant. Mr. Miller, over the two weeks, repeatedly said, 'I don't care whether I win or not. Who cares?' He repeated the same sentiments to Brokaw Sunday night. Nike would have been better advised to pull its endorsement from the likes of Bode. It was observed that Mr. Miller's attitude wasn't exclusively his; others on the U.S. Olympic team came close to expressing the same detatched, 'I don't really care' attitude. Nearly every one of the 'I don't care athletes' were wearing clothing with the Nike logo, but none stood out as much as Mr. Miller. Such attitude is astonishing as it is shocking.
Nike, if it wants to back a team, and wants the best example of team drive and participation where the definition of 'the team is everything, the individual naught', then its logo should show up on the running and clothing gear of the U.S. Navy SEALs. Now, there's an example of true team spirit!
— Don McKay
