Nike decides to pull out their Hyperdunk ads after receiving criticism that they promoted homophobic views. The ads for the Hyperdunk were designed by Nike’s primary ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy. One of the ads depicts a man dunking over his opponent with his crotch slamming into the opponent’s face with the tag line, “Say Hello”.
CNN reports that Nike had said the ads were “based purely upon a common insight from within the game of basketball — the athletic feat of dunking on the opposition, and is not intended to be offensive.”
Rob Heppler from W+K & Weekly Drop mentions in his blog post that “anyone that has been offended has clearly never played sports or had a bloody nose. Its about being disrespected by your opponent. Its about your athletic abilities being far superior so you can defeat them psychically and mentally.”
I agree with Rob Heppler on this matter, I think people are overly sensitive about the whole thing. Competitive sports, particularly in professional basketball in the US, has been all about playful swagger, taunting your opponent to get that mental edge. I’m sure it’s applicable as well in a number of countries that play basketball with a serious passion. W+K has always been coming correct on the ads they have done for NIke throughout the 2 decades and this is no exception. I hope that this incident won’t deter them from continually coming up with fresh and creative ads.
News and excerpts via CNN and Weekly Drop. Thanks!
