I want to take a look at two commercials for running that sell motivation, both in different ways. The first is a commercial for running apparel firm Saucony. Saucony is a running apparel company dedicated for runners, and made by runners. The company started out making running shoes, and they are well-known in the community for quality shoes. Recently however, they have expanded to other running apparel such as tights, jackets, gloves, and technical shirts among other things. The second is also a commercial on running by sports apparel giant, Nike. Nike also started as a shoe company, although it focused more on shoes for football than purely for running. Throughout the years, Nike has evolved to be THE brand for all sports.

It is interesting to note the differences between the two companies. While Saucony is geared towards running and nothing else, Nike is geared towards all sports. Nike’s belief is that if you have a body, you are an athlete, and they are there to make that happen. Saucony on the other hand, is more specialized and caters to the running community. It serves a lot of consumers who are running fanatics and believe that in order to be a good manufacturer of running apparel, one must focus purely on running and nothing else. This is demonstrated by Saucony’s commercial, “What is Your Strong?”.

This commercial idealizes the ultra-runner. If you look at the people in it, they are all clearly athletes. They have very toned bodies, run with perfect posture (and fast), and they go through terrain that’s quite challenging. One scene shows two women running on top of a mountain, while another shows a man without his shirt running in the middle of a highway, with rolling hills on each side. And yet another shows an athlete in tights and compression shorts blazing through a track. Clearly these people are serious and know what they are doing. This commercial encourages its viewers to be the best they can be. Considering Saucony’s target market (serious runners, or people who think they’re serious runners), this is an effective advertisement. It encourages the viewer to go beyond just amateur running and think they can be like the pros.

Nike’s commercial, which is also targeted towards runners, is almost the opposite of Saucony’s. The commercial starts by a male, approachable voice saying “I believe that it starts one step at a time”. Then the camera widens to see a middle-aged man running through the different neighborhoods in New York City. “One step at a time” seems to be the key to this commercial. It targets runners who love the sport but aren’t into it for competition. For these people, the competition is against yourself. It is beating your personal record. It is going out for a run on a cold, rainy day even when the ducks refuse to go out. It is realizing that you still have more room to run after your hardest day of training. This commercial is made for the every day runner, the real runner. It is also more approachable. Someone who is new to the sport wouldn’t be intimidated by the commercial as they would be by Saucony’s. This is also another effective marketing strategy as a large number of Nike’s consumers are people who are new to the sport.

While both commercials focus on running and selling motivation, they are very different. They are different due to the target audience that they are trying to capture. Through these commercials and other marketing strategies, Saucony is trying to position itself amongst serious, competitive runners. They want to be the brand that these people go to and trust for their running needs. Nike, on the other hand, positions itself on the every-day runner. The runner who is dedicated to the sport, but not a competitive athlete. I think both companies did their positioning effectively using the commercials as marketing strategies.

Personally, I relate to Nike’s commercial more as I am a dedicated runner, but by no means a competitive athlete. However, when buying products I tend to buy Saucony as I know that they are focused solely on running, and even in the amateur running community there is a perceived image that Saucony knows what they are doing better than Nike when it comes to running. So from personal experience, perhaps people do want to be the best they can be, or at least look the part.

In concluding, I want to relate this post to Jocelyn Lam’s post (The Power of Product Branding) on product branding and creating an image in people’s minds about what the product stands for and how it fits into their value system. By creating different marketing strategies these two companies have created an image of their brand that appeals to their respective target markets.

I really like the message that this commercial gets across. It starts with a lady running in her sleep. We realize that she is “sleep running” and going through all the night time traffic. Then when she comes home and wakes up the next morning, we realize that she is a runner and she takes the same Adidas shoes she used while sleep running to go for an actual run. This hits an emotional cord with most runners. Anyone who’s ever trained for a marathon or half marathon realizes how much effort and discipline it takes to get all your training done. Running is not just a past time or a hobby, it becomes a part of you. Runners change the way they eat, sleep, and work out for the sake of the sport. Running becomes a part of you, and the message this Adidas commercial conveys is that the brand understands that and supports this fanatic dedication to a sport. It’s even the tag line of their brand: impossible is nothing. This means that anyone can be an athlete, because all those fears that you have about not being good enough, about things being impossible are merely “nothing”. Note that the lady in the commercial is someone in her mid-thirties. She doesn’t look like an athlete, but that doesn’t matter, because she has the spirit of one, and with that she becomes an athlete.

My name is William, and I am a 4th year Commerce student with a specialization in Accounting. I work two part time jobs on top of going to school full time, so time is always of the essence for me. My experiences include working for an independent academic journal, and for the Finance Commission of the Alma Mater Society at UBC.

Other than crunching numbers, I enjoy long distance running, traveling and reading literature. I am currently completing a Minor in French with a focus on 19th century literature, and am also training for my first half marathon. The Marketing course seems interesting, and I am excited to learn more about the behind-the-scenes methods of getting a product into the market and successfully selling it. I think a good knowledge of Marketing is crucial for any well-rounded professional, no matter what your specialization.