The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

I've noticed that the new Nike commercial starring Tiger Woods, with a voice-over from Earl Woods, Tiger's late father, is drawing a lot of debate. Click here and see some comments posted by the listeners of the Dan Patrick show. Or, you can read this FoxNews article that states "many are calling [the commercial] nothing short of creepy." Also, here's a Time magazine article titled "The Creepy Nike Tiger Ad: Would Dad Approve?"

You can watch the commercial by clicking here.

I think that this is a really good commercial. It's topically pertinent, but that's not what I like about it: the commercial portrays a new, repentant Tiger Woods. I know that our tendency--my tendency, at least--is to believe that nothing at all has changed in Tiger. He's the same decrepit womanizer only now he's trying to rebuild an impeccable facade. I don't want to believe that because that cynicism isn't about the issues surrounding Tiger Woods or the good of the man and his family, it's about me refusing to allow repentance--this most wonderful of religious practices--to exist. I want to believe Tiger is truly a repentant man striving to live in repentance. I do believe this. I like this commercial. I like that Tiger participated in it. But, I think there is a lot more to this commercial than may initially meet the eye. Of course, my eyes can be a little slow-witted, so humor me.

People who study marketing talk about how, in the early days of mass media, advertisement was all about "er" words. (I learned a lot from the 2001 Frontline Documentary "The Merchants of Cool," which you can watch online by clicking the link.) Our coffee is blacker than the other guy's coffee. Our shoes will make you faster than the other guy. Our vitamins will make you stronger than the other guy. Our detergent will make your clothes cleaner than the other detergents. In recent years, a shift has occurred in marketing so that an advertisement doesn't even have to be about the product it is promoting. Advertising isn't trying to convince you that that a given product is better than other, similar products. Instead, advertising is inviting you to participate in a community of people who use the same product. Consider people who use Apple, Linux or Toyota (especially Prius owners) and the close-knit, even parochial, nature of these groups of people.

Consider Nike. Owning a Nike product doesn't mean you've gained some sort of competitive advantage over an opponent, it means you're a member of a group of people who are just like you. New customers are gained by people who want in the group and customer loyalty is strengthened by this marketing by the sense of self one finds in purchasing and wearing the product. Here's a cool example from Nike during the 1990s:I remember seeing that commercial when I was a kid and really liking it. I like the excitement of the commercial. I liked the world it portrayed. I wanted to be in that world but my parent wouldn't spend $100 on a pair of shoes--they'd hardly spend $15!

Check back on Monday for my shocking conclusion!!!