Week 2: Nike's Identity Challenge

            In the book, No Logo, it states that “…Wall Street was declaring the unthinkable: Nike had outswooshed itself; its ubiquity had ceased to be a branding success story and had became a liability” (Klein 189).  Nike is persistently challenging itself as a company, more so than challenging itself against other large corporations.  Nike has to frequently construct new identities in order to maintain the attention of the public and to create profit.  Also, Nike constantly creates new identities in order to uphold their corporate reputation of the "swoosh."  

As stated in the article, Is Your Logo In Good Shape?, Nike’s “swoosh” represents the “emotion of sports action with a single stroke” (Iannone).  Whenever people see the “swoosh,” they automatically know that the logo represents Nike.  However, the “swoosh” not only represents Nike, but it represents the idea of Nike.

If Nike kept the same exact identity without any changes in advertising, media, or lifestyle branding then the company wouldn’t be profitable.  This is because society’s ideas and needs change.  Therefore, large corporations like Nike have to adapt along with society in order to provide satisfaction for our ever-changing culture.  This can be seen throughout Nike’s advertisements.

A commercial for Nike called “My Better is Better Than Your Better” shows how the company has adapted to our society.  Today, perhaps more than ever, we live in a culture of constant competition; Nike uses this notion and incorporates it into this commercial.  The main focus of the commercial is not Nike products, but the idea that Nike is trying to convey, which is that with Nike products you can be better than anyone else.  Also, Nike often uses famous sport stars, like in the image at the beginning of the blog, to convey this message because the sports star has what the targeted audience wants.  Nike is staying on top by maintaining knowledge of what our culture wants and selling that idea back to us.