Creative Lesson: How To Write (And Not Write) Ads Targeting Runners.
Distance runners are a tight-knit bunch of weirdos.
I write “weirdos” lovingly. I don’t need to tell serious runners that; they already know. That explanation is for you “runners” (you know who you are) and non-runners.
My parents were both competitive distance runners, ran races from 3-mile to (several) marathons. They started in the late 1960s, when basically no one was running who wasn't being chased. During their lives, most of their friends were runners.
Figuring my lunatic parents were “normal”, I started running when I was 12. In my mid-30s I finally beat my 60-year-old Dad in a 10K race. It was the first and only time I beat him in a race.
This new Adidas campaign via The Netherlands does not know runners. Hopefully, it wasn’t written by runners. If it was, they whiffed.
I like the name-free logo. But the writing is dead wrong. First and foremost, you don’t write “running” as the subject in headlines aimed at runners.
L—”Running” doesn’t “like” anything. It does dislike your knees, feet, etc. And “runners” do NOT like “slow times”, even “slow” runners. That’s a fucking fact. R—Don’t compare running to other sports. Runners don’t give shit. And races may not have “scoreboards”, but they do have clocks at the finish line. Runners care about clocks (and their watches) a lot.
L—Tell runners something they don’t know. R—Naked running? Just, no.
Ad agency: TBWA\NEBOKO (Amsterdam), who call themselves The Disruption® Company. Yes they are claiming that they have trademarked “Disruption”. This campaign is not at all disruptive.
Now, here are two examples from the past (of course) that perfectly nailed the runner target audience. Before viewing, please consider buying a subscription. I work seven days at this, looking at so, so many ads it would make your eyes bleed and then fall out of your head and onto the floor where rats would probably eat them.
Click the ugly green button:
Adidas Running (UK)
Running is about pain, overcoming pain, running through pain, lungs pain, stitches pain, leg pain. This ad, written by Dave Dye gets right at that. (Follow Dye here, you will learn useful info about copywriting and creativity, I guarantee it, because I have.) Runners don’t need to see your fucking shoes. They do not need to be pandered to, like the Dutch campaign.
Dye came up with this idea while doing one of his runs in Regents Park, London. He explains the visual idea:
“I changed the colour from the previous muted, pastelly colours to bright, flaming red. To make it look hot and sweaty. At the last-minute I put a very heavy vignette around the image to focus the eye down the street, as if the runner was purely focussed on the point they were trying to get to.”
Nike (USA)
Nike, via Wieden & Kennedy, owned running advertising in the US for decades. This is just a beautifully art-directed ad. And the copy:
Mothers, there’s a mad man running in the streets, and he’s humming a tune, and he’s snarling at dogs, and he still has four more miles to go.
Runners always have to deal with cars—either inadvertently, or sometimes on purpose—trying to kill them. And they have to deal with dogs. Sometimes, the dogs are not leashed, and they charge you. And try to bite you. But you can’t stop, won’t stop, running to deal with dogs. So you yell and “snarl” at them.
This is your copywriting lesson for today, young creatives. Many more to come.
Previously in: Creative Class With Copyranter.
Nothing to Argue with here. I agree. I might even suggest they would be stronger without copy? Except for the 'goal posts' option. That expression is dangerously close to a smile, and I've never smiled while running, and have yet to see one on other runners in the wild. The naked one, no chance.