Marketing: Hacking the Unconscious – Selling a Philosophy, Series 1, Episode 6
Rory Sutherland explores how a three-word slogan transformed a mundane sports good into an entire lifestyle philosophy, and generated a marketer’s most precious quality: cool.
In 1987, Nike’s fortunes were on the slide. Overtaken by rival sports companies in market share, profits nosediving – the brand even found themselves being sued by The Beatles. Yet by the end of the decade, three little words had utterly altered their fortunes: a slogan that ditched the hi-tech athletic geekery of their previous campaigns and sold a feeling, a lifestyle, a philosophy. Just Do It.
How does a product move beyond mere utility and come to embody a zeitgeist? And should “cool” brands aim to cultivate an air – and a consumer base – of loyal specialists – or make that “cool” available to a mass market? Nike insiders Scott Bedbury and Liz Dolan tell the turbulent story of the early Just Do It campaign – featuring divorces, serial killers, and a badly-translated Maasai warrior – whilst Rory speaks to marketing guru Byron Sharp and evolutionary psychologist Nichola Raihani about our desire to, as Apple once put, “Think Different”.
Listen to the full episode on BBC Radio 4.
