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.