Legal And Ethical issues

The content nike #makeitcount advert campaign is not found to have an obvious offensive effect of the audience that i sampled in my audience research. I believe that this is the general reseption a wider readership of the advert. Infact the advert seems to be received possitively and many people have reacted to the motivational aspect to the campaign and it manifested into sporting events and social media campaigns that people have embraced and enjoyed. Websites like www.soleoftheearth.com have writen about the positive effect the campaign has had and the events it has motivated. Inspiring mass meetings of runners in New York for example.

Part of Nike's campaign did meet controversy when Wayne Rooney posted a tweet for nike. The was down to a legal issue discribed  as 'Misleading Advertsing' because the tweet was not clearly advertising the ASA states that "Marketing communications must be identifiable as such" The ASA recieved complaints abou the advert being misleading and the tweet had to be removed. Similar compaints have been made about a snickers twitter campaign by Rio Ferdinand. Although these complaints where not upheld because the series of 6 tweets  were in close succesion and the last constained a #sponsored or #sp hashtag, because of this they deemed to be identifiable as advertising Nike would have needed to use one of these hashtags to avoid complaints.
The campaign represents black and white athletes, therefor it represents a range of ethnicities, which means the campaigns reach can be expanded and appreciated by more people.

The ASA: The Advertising Standards Authority are the organisation responsible for the UK's regulation of advertising across all media, including TV, print, online and radio advertising.  The focus of the ASA is addressing complaints from the public and aim to take action on misleading, offensive and harmful content. They state that there purpose is to "make every UK ad a responsible one" They have a  policy of Five Strands

1: Understanding- Being fair and balanced in response to social concern

2: Support- giving support and advise to advertisers, helping them to create responsible adverts

3: Impact- committing proportional amount of effort on matters that make the biggest difference or cause a lot of social complaints

4. Proactive- Working with others and collecting information, even when no complaints have been made

5- Awareness- increase the awareness of the authority, allowing the public to effectively engage with the ASA

The nike #makeitcount campaign will need to stick to guidelines in place by the ASA, the Advertising Standards Authority. The aim of this regulation agency is to make sure every ad is a responsible advert. The ad campaign as a whole was not met with wide spread complaints. during most peoples reading of the adverts they do not cause offence. Although some of the techniques Nike have used to promote their campaign have been called into question

The print adverts and the billboard ads feature athletes, mid activity, looking straight into the camera, usually with an intense expression. The clothing's of the athletes could possibly be seen as inappropriate is other situations but the clothes fit the context and are essential because they are what the athletes were whilst training and are seen as appropriate for the advertisement. The adverts where widely met with a positive reception and where understood by the majority of the audience.

The campaign represents a range of ethnicities and genders. With black and white athletes and male and female athletes. Although from what i could find there is no disabled representation in the advertisements. Because the Olympics where happening at the time this ad campaign was launched. The focus was on the the Olympic athletes. Although for the paralympics they did not adopt the campaign. This can be seen as discriminatory or un responsible advertising. Although it is not blatant discrimination it is clear that some readers of the the advert may take offence to this. Most likely that the disabled community would be more likely to complain.

Audience research sheet

Distrubution And Promotion

The Nike #Makeitcount campaign  has been promoted in various different ways, including physical Out Of Home media for example billboards, bus shelters and on-premise signs. As well as integrating other forms of media for the maximum reach and awareness of the campaign. These include Tv advertising, internet and social media advertising and print based adverts in Magazines.

Nike have distributed these adverts in publications such as ProDirect Soccer's bi annual magazine. Consisting of a one page spread that integrates the cross media aspect of the campaign.  As well as 'Mens Fitness' magazine. With these placements Nike are insuring that the effective reach of the campaign was maximized. Choosing publications that the readers will have a pre-determined interest in the subject area which means the percent composition also be maximised. They can insure that they are getting the best possible demographic of people to see the advertising which makes it much more cost efficient. The reach of the advertising in these 2 magazines would be national. Nike has made market specific advertisements which include successful UK athletes to be in these sports publications because they have predominantly UK based readers.
The campaign as a whole has an international reach but aside from the UK the USA market is the other main target with adverts developed specifically for the US audience featuring famous American athletes. These print adverts featured in magazines including Sporting News, ESPN and Sports Illustrated.
 Although i couldn't find the exact price that that these publications charged for the nike adverts i have found similar advert campaigns that obtained full page adverts in national magazines $100,000. Different magazines will vary in how much they charge for adverts depending on the size, a larger advert will cost more than a smaller one because the impact is greater also colour is taken into consideration due to printing costs. The Nike advert will be minimum printing costs of an advert that size because it is mainly black and white. Also considered is the popularity of the magazine. Magazine owners will be aware if their magazine is very well selling and are able to charge more because their pages are in demand from advertisers. Also different persitions in an a publication will determine price, a full page advert on the inside front cover, the first page or the back cover would vary from regular inside pages, estimated to cost around $20,000 more for the inside cover, front page or back cover. Simply, the higher the reach of the advert the more magazines will charge and the more companies are willing to pay

Examples of print adverts

The campaign has also been promoted on outdoor advertising sites, creating another aspect to the campaign with 'Out Of Home' media. By doing this Nike have been able to increase the reach of their advertisments. They have done this by creating Billboard, bus shelter and in store advertising. The adverts, whether it be billboards, posters or outdoor screenings are strategicly postioned to give the maximum commercial audience for the campaign. This requires charting of the advert which means t maximising the effective reach of the advertisement by planning the location and scheduling of each individual unit of advertising. other things are also taken into consideration when planning advertising. Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSA) are chosen by advertising companies  so they can target a substantial population core of an area that is usually metropolitan  which includes communities with an appropiate social and economic similarities with the core of population. This means nike can choose locations that are best suited for the demographic they are targeting. #makeitcount billboards have been placed in central areas of London for example at the centre of a junction which, because of cars coming from a number of directions, a very large range of approach and be achieved. This is increased by the the size of the advertisement. An example is a 14' 48' Nike billboard in central London that can easily been seen 100 feet away. Also the the dwell time for an ad placement like this is long because of cars waiting in traffic. The  large, high reaching billboards i have found would probably be £600 a week and the bus shelter adverts around £250 per week. These are higher than an average rate because the advertisements i found where in London, which is a metropolitan city and prices forlarge amounts for advertising

Nike Billboard in cerntral London

Shopping centre poster board 

Nike used cross media advertising which included social media. The #makeitcount campaign started for the 2012 Olympics. Of which adidas were the sponsor. Nike's response was a huge social media campaign incorporating the #makeitcount hashtag. including endorsements from athletes such as Wayne Rooney on Twitter. "reports showed that more than 16,000 tweets associated the word Nike with the word Olympic compared to 9,295 for Adidas. Furthermore, Nike attracted 166,718 new facebook fans versus Adidas’s meer 80,761." Swell as this online video sharing platforms where also used to increase the reach of the adverts. These were a series of videos of well known athletes stating how they will "makeitcount" in 2012. These have a reach of a predominantly young persons audience. Which extends the reach past some of the magazine publications because it is free to watch the videos so the audience is likely to be much wider. Also this is relatively cheap advertising for the company.

Wayne Rooneys promotional tweet sponsored by Nike. Although this was later taken down because of the ASA's ruling that it wasn't clearly advertising 

#makeitcount promoted by nike during the 2012 olympics

Wieden + Kennedy London

The agency was founded by Dan Wieden and David Kennedy in Portland, Oregon. The London office was founded in 1998. Wieden and Kennedy met whilst working at Nike,  a company they continued to work with after they founded the agency in 1980. It is now one of the largest independent advertising agencies.  The company started in Portland and in the thirty years since they have expanded to own 8 offices world wide as well as maintaining their headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Wieden + Kennedy is somewhat unique in the advertising agency industry, they are still independently owned, and going against the nature of the industry have maintained the same founder throughout the thirty years.  Although the company was created upon advertising they now see themselves as they “encompass everything from building mobile apps to creating a life-size clay sculpture to celebrate a sporting win.”

Area of their London office

The agency describes its working process as “creatively led” and have “over 200 smart, lovely, hard-working people.” Across 8 office locations across the world.  the agency has offices in London, Amsterdam, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Tokyo and Delhi. Wienden Kennedy describe there some of their core philosophies are “the work comes first” and “don’t say it, be it”. The company operates with a creative priority.  The agency claims that their independence is crucial to their creativity and the way they work.  Eliza Williams, a writer for W+K claims that the best thing about independence is “it gives us the luxury of being honest with everyone, our clients and our people.” The agency have a number of creative teams, the number and the positions of people are varied throughout there different offices. Most include an art director who, working predominantly as a team with a Copywriter. The art directors role within the agency is to control the visual appearance of the advertising campaign, including type, image, colour, layouts and general design.  The company usually works with groups of 2-10 people on each projects, as well and integrating people from outside of the agency, for example for the Nike #makeitcount campaign they partnered with AKWQ. As part of their campaign the two agencies demonstrated how they integrate cross platform and new media, incorporating online social networking and short online videos as well as print adverts billboards and in-store advertising

Some of Wieden + Kennedy’s clients include Cravendale, Nike, Honda, Tesco, and Three Mobile. The companies portfolio of work seems to be very varied and with no specific focus of one type of company. All the campaigns also seem to be quite stylistically different to each other.  Some of the more successful campaigns they have down are for Honda, Cravendale and Nike.

Cravendale TV advert

Wieden +Kennedy is one of the largest advertising agencies and has competition from other agencies like JWT, Epsilon and Interpublic group but avoids  some amount of direct competition because of its independent status. Also they have merged with companies to work together for example AKWQ who do some similar sports based advertising. To work on the Nike campaign together. This helps to minimize competition and get the best produced advertising. One of the companies doing similar work on sports ad campaigns is WPP London.

Nike #MAKEITCOUNT

Nike #MAKEITCOUNT campaign print advert

Nike's #MAKEITCOUNT campaign started with youtube videos. incorperating the #MAKEITCOUNT hashtag. The advert has been created by Wieden + Kennedy London and AKQA Encouraging people to hashtag on twitter and tell Nike there stories of how they plan to "make it count" in 2012.

Nike posted their own images and posts of networking sites such as instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. All including the #MAKEITCOUNT hashtag as well as using it on print and tv adverts. The campaign is aiming to target aspiring sports people to buy there products.   The print adverts in themselves target a specific reach of people. Using the adverts in sports magazines and websites so audiences with an interest in sport will be able to see them. This means that the advert is relevant to the reach that will see it. This means they get the maximum effectivness from the advert with minimal costs.

 The advert is reproduced in different forms with different sports people but all stylistically done in the same way which creates a type of frequency that is more interesting for the audience because of the variation of the imagery used. This means that the effect of the frequency is enhanced because the audience are exposed to all these different famous sports people which raises the profile of the campaign and also gives a sense of reliability of the product because the campaign suggests that Nike products are used by sucesful athletes. The image is accompanied by different 'pledges' from the athletes for example 'nearly isn't enough' and 'walk to the stadium, sprint to the finish' these are made to look hand drawn and suggest the athlete themselves have written them. This gives a personal aspect to the advert. This writing looks like it is written in chalk which is intended to mimic chalk boards used by athletes when preparing. The image covers the whole advert but is black and white so it doesn't overcrowded the advert and allows the type in the advert to be the main focus. The only colour used in the advert is red and that is highlighting the '#MAKEITCOUNT' campaign The adverts have been displayed in the Nike store aswell as in magazine print adverts and on the internet

there is also a series of online films directed by Joe Roberts. These include Mo Farah and Rio Ferdinand which features them training and talking about there ambitions and goals. The aim is to inspire viewers to want to do sport and subsequently purchase Nike products and participate in the online aspect to the campaign with the hashtag where people are encouraged to tweet about their pledges how they will 'make it count' Celebrities such as Wayne Rooney have been sponsored by Nike to get the hash tag into the public eye and to promote the brand on social networking sites.

Example of their online video adverts


Examples of Print adverts