A message for Reebok: You suck.

You suck for taking a brand with great potential and doing 17 random campaigns over 15 years.

You suck for spending 100’s of millions of dollars on properties like the NFL and barely ever activating them.

You suck for being so desperate for attention that you do an ad like this:



“Make your boobs jealous?”

Actually, it’s hard to blame the folks who created and made this ad. They came up with an attention-getting idea. But their challenge is to sell a shoe that’s “proven to shape your butt up to 28% more and your hamstrings and calves up to 11% more than regular sneakers.” Do you get a free bottle of snake oil with every pair? Forget the fact that the announcer talks so fast that the statistics are forgotten before he’s done talking. It’s the statistics themselves that are the head-shaker.

Don’t get me wrong: I liked this ad. With the sound turned off. It’s pleasing to boob likers, a group from which I wouldn’t exclude myself. But when the boobs start talking it feels like two boys in freshmen AV class wrote the dialogue and cast their ex-Valley Girl moms as the boob-overs.

Let’s just hope Reebok doesn’t come up with a new sports bra. I cringe just thinking about what the other body parts might have to say about that.

The silver lining is, I learned something.

Hmmm...



A man is running. He seems to know where he’s going…but he seems lost. He’s disoriented. Confused. But wait.! Hark! What’s that he sees? There, above those 18-wheelers! It’s a metaphor!

Yes, it’s a place he might like, a place far above...making your way in the world these days, takes everything you got…taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot! Wouldn’t you like to get away…

Well of course, the guys who went to Cheers used beer as their getaway, and it makes sense that runners use…well…running. It feels like you escape to another world. A white, fluffy, goopy world where you run on marshmallows. Duh!

OK, I admit, I’m not a runner, and I don’t get running. I’ll run up and down a basketball court til my hammies almost rip, but as soon as I hit 8:00 on the treadmill, my shin splints freak out and remind me what it feels like to get strafed by machine gun fire.

So as a non-runner, I apologize to Asics when I say, you nailed the metaphor, but I fear that your runner may not be as lost as the brand that made the ad. Interesting to look at, yes, and I got the metaphor, but I just wasn’t sure how you got to “Sound mind, sound body.”

But then I Googled your tagline and I actually learned something!

The first letters from your tagline, “Anima Sana in Corpore Sana,” come together to form the word “Asics,” which of course, in Latin, stands for...you guessed it…”Sound mind, sound body.”

So if you’ve ever wondered what Asics means—and I really did, being a human being and possessing the curiosity that goes with it—you now know. They can hang with Nike (victory), Reebok (antelope), and Adidas (Mr. Adi Das).

Hey Saucony, you got some ‘splainin to do…

The Winter Classic: marketers love, humans tolerate

For marketers, the Winter Classic is a dream. For regular joe sports fans, it’s getting more and more annoying.

Yes, the very idea of hockey at Wrigley Field is cool, and the fact that it’s the Red Wings playing the Blackhawks makes it even cooler. So why shouldn’t the Blackhawks and the NHL take advantage of it? They absolutely should.

From Reebok watch and win contests to merchandise and more merchandise, it’s a win-win for anyone trying to make a buck off the game. Unless of course you’re trying to get a ticket. Good luck (Got 40 grand for a pair?). Or, if you’re from Canada. Ooops.

Don’t get me wrong; the Winter Classic is a wonderfully fresh idea, and the league and the Hawks deserve all the fringe benefits they can get. Just makes me wish even more that the advertising wasn’t so barely average. Anyone think this is any good?

Use what you got

Nike has the swoosh, Gatorade has colored sweat. Under Armor has its signature logo, Adidas has the three stripes, and Reebok has…um…that thing that looks like an airplane that’s been stabbed by a javelin.

Proprietary icons help give brands meaning and reasons for consumers to interact with them. Where you see the swoosh, you think sports authenticity; when you see colored sweat, you think rehydration. When you see the three stripes, you think…what? I’m not sure.

Adidas is such a perplexing brand. Their Impossible is Nothing campaign is a wonderfully powerful body of work, from its website to its TV and print (many many too numerous to mention, but here's a classic) that screams We Know Sports and We Know Athletes. But much of their other work is all over the place. Not in a bad way, just in an inconsistent way.

Here’s a good example.



Cool spot to celebrate 60 years of Adidas originals. Nice shoes. Star-studded, fun to watch. New school meets old school, all awash with the three stripes. If nothing else, it makes you feel good about the brand. And definitely generating lots of chatter and discussion, around the world.

So sports authenticity aside, good for Adidas, taking advantage of what they own. It’s a powerful tool. Look at President-elect Obama (Hope). And the Cubs (the Curse).

Sometimes, it helps. Sometimes, not so much.

Sneaker wars jump to a new level

What makes you better at what you do? How do you best get up for a challenge?

Do you follow the Bobby Knight bejeezus-scaring school of motivational theory? WARNING: THIS IS EXTREMELY EXTREMELY EXPLETIVE LADEN.



Or are you a joyful follower of the Dick Vermeil school, sponsored by Kleenex®, (where your coach is your friend, mentor, and hugbuddy all wrapped into one)? Either way, there’ll be tears.

Maybe it’s simply good enough to look across the battlefield and stare into the eyes of a fierce opponent.

If you believe that stiffer competition makes you do better work, then there’s good news for Nike, Adidas and Reebok.

Puma has hooked up with Droga 5.

Given their history for creating ideas that make people notice, there’s no doubt they’ll do the same for Puma. It's generating much discussion and healthy debate. Big question is, what kind of a brand Puma will be?

They do sports ads now.



Nothing to write home about. Not even done all that well. Although the shoes seem pretty damn cool.

They also have seemingly endless styles of cool looking shoes in wonderfully crazy colors and designs.

So what do they focus on? Sports? Fashion? Both? Youngsters? Hipsters? Chicks? Dudes? US? Europe? Asia?

My bet is, all of the above. Can’t wait to see it.