Nike Embraces the Cold with ‘Choose Your Winter’ Campaign

Nike is encouraging consumers to embrace the cold, launching their ‘Choose Your Winter’ campaign to push a new line of winter activewear.

Nike’s not afraid of winter, and you shouldn’t be either. The brand’s new campaign – created by Wieden + Kennedy – juxtaposes a faux-meterorologist’s gloom-and-doom forecast with athletes casually going about their business in the frigid outdoor air.

Nike clearly spared no expense on this ad, hiring Hollywood character actor Chris O’Dowd to play the weatherman. The spot is also loaded with cameos from famous athletes, including Aaron Rodgers, Jordy Nelson and Clint Dempsey.

While the dichotomy between the deadly weather report and the comfortable, Hyperwarm-clad athletes is worth a chuckle, the joke has run its course by the time 60 seconds are up. The most effective part of the ad for me was the seemingly tacked-on final 15 seconds.

In the ad’s epilogue, the only sound is the occasional honking of car horns, as a jogger speeds past a traffic jam on a snowy day. The tranquility of the silence – and the beautiful imagery of the cityscape looking over a river – makes the jogger’s situation more inviting than those stuck in traffic.

Sure, they may be warm and comfortable in their cars, but so is the jogger as he glides by in his Nike Hyperwarm gear. Winter’s not slowing him down. That’s pretty much the idea behind this entire campaign, yes? I’d like to see this coda released as a stand-alone ad, but maybe that’s just me.

Howard Davidson Arlington Massachusetts

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