“My better is better than your better” “My power hits harder” “You can’t stop me” “Your agility owes my agility 20 bucks” The commercial above uses your emotions or pathos rather to push a line of Nike training gear. This commercial is geared toward “the athlete” using slick sayings or lines that are somewhat like scare tactics that distract the audience from the evidence or relevant issues.
The commercial starts out with professional football player Ladainian Tomlinson saying “My better is better than your better” which sets the table for the slew of catchy sayings that are to follow. Throughout the course of the commercial various athletes, playing sports or in the middle of drills, reel off many different sayings. This plays to the emotions that are strongly tied to athletes, by showing famous athletes such as Hope Solo, Steve Nash, Matt Holliday and USC head football coach Pete Carroll in the middle of drills where athletes watching the commercials themselves have been. This mentally places the viewer in that place, then hearing catchy sayings related to cocky, brash attitude that an athlete has when overly confident with themselves. Then the commercial is all tied together at the end when NIKE SPARQ TRAINING flashes across the screen followed by the infamous Nike slogan “JUST DO IT” paired with their trademark Nike swoosh.
This is a display of Over-sentimentalization. It distracts the viewer away from the relevance of the issues of sport, forget about the training itself, all you see and hear are athletes shooting off at the mouth telling you that their “Fast is faster” but not displaying why. They draw the athlete in with the famous athletes and fun and catchy sayings, but don’t show why or how the product is good or why you should use it. Nike uses the famous athletes popularity to sell the product, because it makes a fan of a particular athlete think “Well if Steve Nash uses this stuff I should to” . Then at the same time the commercial is displaying false needs as well. This product has was not around when Steve Nash or Hope Solo were growing up so its not like they used these products to get where they are, but Nike associates their product with these great athletes so young aspiring athletes who’s idols are people like Matt Holliday think that they need the product to be like them when in reality those famous athletes didn’t just a certain product to mold themselves into an elite athlete but rather busted their butt day in and day out for years to get them where they are today. So therefore this creates confusion when you separate fact from fiction. And to finally sum up the exaggerated uses of pathos you have the scare tactic factor in all of this. Look at the commercial then look at it again, look into the eyes of all those athletes, what do you see? Will, determination, guts, and relentlessness. It makes you step back and think get with the program, because if you don’t you will be left in the dust. You have all these professional athletes promoting something so you tend to listen to them when they have something to say when it comes to athletics. So if Steve Nash tells me to eat my Wheaties ever morning I’ll defiantly look into it, this is scaring a person into using a product. Cause if you don’t your agility is gonna owe their agility 20 bucks.
Cause and effect is slightly used here if you make the connection. The connection is between the athlete using the product and the non-users of the product. Because if you don’t use the product the person who is using the product their has the upper hand, thus their “Power is more powerful than your power”. Cause and effect is also show between the famous highly accomplished athlete and their supposed use of the product. Because Steve Nash uses the product and he won 2 MVP's and Hope Solo uses the product and she is the goalie for team USA soccer. This ultimately results in the viewer associating Nike Sparq Training gear with great success.
The commercial also displays classification and division somewhat to show you how the product fits into the larger scheme of things. Once again they use famous athlete after famous athlete to link their product to those athletes and ultimately their success, so therefore they are helping the viewer conceptualize how the product fits into a larger idea or scheme, which in this case is professional sports.
This same idea in the commercial hits on example and illustration to show how the product can be used to impact someone’s life. The products are used for increasing sports performance so therefore when they once again associate famous athletes success with their product they are illustrating how their product can impact ones life.
The ad, among all other things, shows narration to sell their product. The clever yet brash lines that are said throughout the commercial make up the backbone of the commercial, it gives it an identity “My better is better than your better”. When you pair that with athletes, famous ones none the less, it gives it a trademark, something to be remembered by. It sticks out in the back of your mind, you want to tell someone that your “Quick, quickie von quick quick” on the basketball court. Thus the commercial has done its job.
