Nikes

Imagine a shoe that can supplement that motivational drive. Nike is the world’s leading designer, marketer, and distributer of athletic footwear. Nike is known to promote its products through sponsorship agreements with famous professional athletes, professional sports teams, and college athletic teams. The Nike Air Zoom advertisement creates a conceptual situation that a running shoe can take the place of the ever-faithful companion, man’s best friend. How is it possible that this running shoe will be there to give your motivation, “a gentle tug toward the door… sitting patiently with that certain look in its eye that says its go time, let’s lace up, get outdoors and take it up a notch?”

The Nike brand comes to mind when one is ask to think about a running shoe. Nike recognizes its audience and plays toward their interests very wisely. The logic of the ad states that buying the shoes buys fitness motivation. The persuasive caption under the picture of the running shoe provides evidence to back up the logic. It describes the shoe taking on the role of a dog begging the owner to get outside and run. With the shoe, one will have both the motivation and comfort not only to run, but also to “take it up a notch.”

The pathos of the advertisement plays on the emotions of consumers who do not fit in with the rest of the fit and athletic modern culture. Nike associates the product with a desirable ideal and/or lifestyle that the audience finds appealing. The Nike advertisement attempts to persuade consumers to buy Nikes, a shoe that promises to meet the needs of everybody. According to the ad, the shoe is necessary gear for the outdoorsman whose quest for adventure. Nike claims has “evolved” into something superior implying perhaps “survival of the fittest.”

Ethos is established primarily through name-brand recognition and a claim that the Nike

shoes will meet the needs of individuals whose playground is outdoors. The targeted audience of

this ad expects a...