Whether you view it as an inspirational rallying cry or a bullying command, the slogan Just Do It is hard to avoid in modern life. Accompanied by the familiar Nike swoosh, it appears on bags, T-shirts and billboards all over the world. As a statement it sums up the sports brand: it is competitive, forceful, direct, as lean and powerful as the athletes that appear alongside it in Nikes ads. Dan Wieden, the founder of the ad agency Wieden and Kennedy drew on a surprising source for inspiration. In Doug Prays 2009 documentary about advertising, Art & Copy, he confesses that the idea for the line was sparked by the last words of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, who said Lets do it! to the firing squad before his execution. This may not be quite the brand heritage that Nike would ideally have chosen, yet at the time such matters were largely irrelevant, as nobody was convinced that the tagline was even necessary, let alone had any inkling of the impact it would have. Needess to say, Wieden did not target the Nike product to everyone equally. Wieden changed the word “let’s to “just”. How does this change alter the meaning of the phrase? Can you think of any catch phrases that are used to promote and commodify in our current culture and are they inclusive or exclusive in terms of how they represent women and minorities?
