Just Doing It

Wieden+Kennedy leverages its independence to make advertising that transcends branding and drives the pop-culture conversation.

- Jeff Beer

On September 3, 2018, at 2:20 p.m., an image appeared on Instagram: a tightly cropped black-and-white close-up of a face, eyebrows, and chin bordering a resolute gaze, and the message “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” You know what I’m talking about. That ad.

Nike’s Colin Kaepernick spot was more than just an ad. By centering a campaign around the controversial quarterback, the company was making a bold statement in defense of the banished NFL star’s career-ending protest against racial injustice. The reaction was explosive and immediate. Celebrities, consumers, pro athletes, activists, and the president of the United States all weighed in. Welcome to Hot Take City, Population: the Internet. Brand suicide! Brand bravery! Buying more Nikes! Lighting Nikes on fire! Even those skeptical of Nike making a social justice claim, given its own issues regarding gender discrimination and factory conditions over the past year, had to admit this was marketing at its very best. Advertising as agitator, the popcorn of pop culture.

This moment may have felt like an instance of spontaneous combustion, but the seed for it had been planted 30 years earlier, when the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, working for Nike, galvanized a consumer/social movement with the phrase “Just Do It.”