Is it time that Nike came up with new creative?

Take a look at the previous TV adverts and you’ll see what I mean. They all have Ronaldo or a Ronaldo figure as the star who waltzes around all the other stars introducing new shirts/boots and it’s all so product led not brand led marketing.

They all have smart alec winks and phrases which have been repeated many times now. It’s all so unimaginative and unoriginal. Surely time to change the creative agency?

They have even lost their humour and become forgettable and all too clumsy in their promoting of the products and the Nike brand. This is a holistic brand advert for their World Cup stars that will naturally lead to an increase all-around of Nike football releated products if done well. It doesn’t need the boots for example rammed down our throats when we see every player playing with different boots every week in the Premiership or La Liga.

Is it a case of “well, the last one worked, won awards and got social engagement and so did all the others so this one will too?” Is that the limit of the creativity of what you could do with such a unique and previously boundary pushing brand?  Where’s the differentiation with the competitors? This could quite easily be an adidas brand advert.

We all know that these adverts are classic guearilla marketing as the unofficial sports brand that always gains more brand recognition than the official sponsor adidas for the World Cup/Euro’s. So on that basis you could say that they worked? Do Nike now look more official than adidas and is that their intention? I would actually put the recognition down to adidas adverts being even more boring, forgettable and predictable than Nike’s.

It’s easy to ask an audience who they remember as a sponsor if people who answer that prefer the perceived-to-be cooler, unofficial brand who spend the most amount of money on the world’s most over exposed footballer (Ronaldo) and probably buy their boots/shoes/shirts etc of Barcelona and Manchester United.

What happed to the Nike brand? With the Nike Fuel Band being pulled due to bad sales and poor performance these new World Cup adverts communicate a brand that has lost its cutting marketing edge and brand appeal and lost its way relying on old tricks and the same old TV advert feel.

If all they’re going to spend their money on in 2015 on another brand that is having similar downwardly motions, Manchester United, then they really are up a creek without a paddle or a decent TV advert.