Have you ever seen an ad that stuck in your memory though it is old. Quite old. As in 1996 old? You know that Nike issued an Olympics ad for the Paris Olympics (here). Say whatever you want, it left me completely cold. But if there is an ad for Nike that stuck with me, it is the Atlanta 1996 ad for introducing the zoom technology. The ad was - wait for it - 4 double pages of centerfold. The copy was both, haphazard, and epic. You had the self-depreciation (who the hell does Nike think they are?), the in-your-face (if you can't stand the heat, get out of Atlanta), the provocation (we don't sell dreams. we sell shoes.), and the bored-to-death-anti-ad-consumer (don't insult our intelligence. Tell us what it is, tell us what does, and don't play the national anthem while you do it.) And that was just the hors d'oeuvre for the rest of the ad, which explains zoom (and doesn't play the national anthem while it does it), but also does it in a collage art direction which takes you several places mentally at once.
Pity the whole world has gone let's-do-something-that-people-would-see-on-youtube instead of something as wonderful as this. Oh and that man vomiting? He ended up becoming a doctor (here).
