Nike started a brand new chapter of its personal historical past this week when it tinkered with the slogan that has served it nicely for 37 years. Launched in 1988, “Simply Do It” was among the many finest recognized catchlines in advertising historical past, having fun with an 82.3% recognition fee, based on a 2018 ballot by Survata.
If the change is a daring transfer, it’s additionally a measured one. “Simply Do It” has turn into “Why Do It,” however the important part—“do it”—stays.
Principally forgotten, nevertheless, is the way it acquired there within the first place.
“Simply Do It” was an adaptation of “Let’s do it,” the ultimate phrases spoken by spree killer Gary Gilmore shortly earlier than his execution in 1977.
Had virtually every other advert govt pitched that one, it’d by no means have made it out of the convention room. However on this case, the adman was Dan Wieden, cofounder of Wieden+Kennedy.
In 1988, Wieden & Kennedy (the plus signal would come later) was a six-year-old agency taking nice care of its marquee consumer, Nike, which Wieden and Dave Kennedy had taken with them after they left rival store William Cain. As Weiden recalled in a 2015 interview with design journal Dezeen, by 1988, Nike had lastly thrown severe cash at a brand new marketing campaign—and he’d been up all evening worrying. Wieden had put 5 groups on the job, every creating its personal spot. The advertisements had been superb, however didn’t operate coherently as a bunch.
“We’d like a tagline to drag these things collectively,” Wieden thought.
It was then the inventive exec recalled a quote carried extensively in nationwide media 11 years earlier than. In 1977, the state of Utah imposed the demise penalty on Gilmore, who’d murdered a gas-station attendant and a resort supervisor. Gilmore’s execution made nationwide information as a result of he’d refused all appeals and opted for a firing squad. Shortly earlier than the riflemen took goal, the warden requested Gilmore if he had any final phrases.
“Gary appeared up for an prolonged interval,” witness Lawrence Schiller advised The Salt Lake Metropolis Tribune. “I imagine his phrases [were], ‘Let’s do it.’”
Why would Weiden have recalled a tidbit so obscure when making a tagline for Nike? For a time, Gilmore had lived in Portland, town the place each Weiden+Kennedy and Nike are primarily based. Norman Mailer had additionally gained a Pulitzer for The Executioner’s Tune, his novel primarily based on Gilmore’s story.
Wieden, who died in 2022, insisted that his partial adoption of the road had no social or political implications.
“I like[d] the ‘do it’ half,” he mentioned in Doug Pray’s 2009 documentary Artwork & Copy. “None of us actually paid that a lot consideration. We thought, ‘yeah, that’d work.’”
Certainly, the slogan did work—even when it additionally left the consumer holding some dialectical baggage. Liz Dolan, Nike’s vp of world advertising in 1988, advised Pray, “I’m certain they didn’t need anybody to essentially know.” (Nike didn’t instantly reply to ADWEEK’s request for remark.)
A profitable property with troubling origins is hardly a brand new paradox in company America, after all.
“Many long-established manufacturers have skeletons within the closet,” mentioned Ericho Communications CEO Eric Yaverbaum, writer of Public Relations for Dummies. “Leaders is probably not liable for the actions of their predecessors, however they nonetheless profit from the legacies these actions created.”
It’s unclear how a lot Wieden could have even advised his consumer about his inspiration for the slogan, however one factor is past dispute: Nike selected nicely in operating with it.
Widen would lengthy bear in mind how Nike founder Phil Knight wasn’t a fan of the slogan at first, telling him: “We don’t want that shit.”
To which Wieden responded: “Simply belief me on this one.”
