A Discourse Analysis of Nike's Dream Crazier Promotional Campaign

This report provides a critical analysis of Nike's 'Dream Crazier' promotional campaign, focusing on its creative elements, media and advertising strategies, and audience processing. The analysis utilizes discourse theory to examine the creative components, particularly Serena Williams' narration and the campaign's message of women's empowerment. The report also explores the campaign's media strategy, including its use of YouTube and social media to reach its target audience. The report further applies framing theory to assess how the campaign positions itself and processes its audience, highlighting the formation of public opinion regarding gender equality in sports. The report concludes with recommendations for enhancing the campaign's effectiveness and creativity.

PROMOTIONAL COMMUNICATION
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Executive summary
In this report, a commercial promotional campaign called dream crazier by Nike is analyzed.
Critics have been done on three parts that include creative elements of this advertisement
campaign. This analysis has been done on the basis of discourse theory. In addition, media
and advertisement is another factor that has been done by analyzing the audience. Public
opinion formation is selected for accomplishing this purpose. Positioning and audience
processing is another vital factor upon which critic has been done. This done framing theory
approach. At last, different recommendations are provided that if improvised, can help this
campaign to become more attractive and creative.
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Findings and analysis.................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Recommendations......................................................................................................................9
Reference list............................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Promotional communication is considered as a method of conveying information related to
products and services to target audience. Organizations spend a good amount in promotion
for reaching maximum audience through their advertisement. This study is focusing on three
parts of an advertising campaign of Nike called “Dream Crazier", including creative element,
strategy of media and advertisement and processing of positioning and audience. Through
this campaign, Nike has spread the message of women empowerment. This ad campaign is
based on the promotion of equal rights for both men and women athletes. Aim of this report
is to critically analyze content, strategies, and approaches of this ad campaign of Nike.
Findings and analysis
Creative element
The ‘Dream Crazier’ campaign of Nike has included Serena Williams as the narrator and she
has explained how athletes run behind their dreams. Through the speech of Serena, she has
redefined the meaning of ‘Crazy’ and has promoted women empowerment. The discourse
analysis technique is the appropriate technique to analyze the creative element of this ad
campaign by Nike. As opined by Carey and Goddard (2017), discourse analysis helps in
analyzing the stretches of speech. It means that the speech of Serena Williams in this ad
campaign must be analyzed for understanding its intermediate stretches. Through this
campaign, Nike is constructing a reality regarding the power of women athletes to chase their
dream. The voice and approach of narrating of Serena Williams are the creative elements of
this campaign. The approach of the narrator is potent enough to influence people to believe in
women power. At the beginning of the speech, it has been mentioned that most of the people
of the world judge women by their stereotypes rather than their talent. As mentioned by Riff
et al. (2019), less faith in women by society is preventing many countries from growth.
Specifically, the sports industry is male-oriented and audience of this industry believes less in
women athletes. Here, in the dad campaign of Nike, Serena Williams is refining the meaning
of the word ‘Crazy’. She has encouraged women athletes to use their craziness to chase their
dreams. She has mentioned that women must show their craziness to achieve success.
The language used in this ad campaign of Nike, is a simple form of English that can be
understood by the audience easily. The voice of the narrator and the approach of her have
become familiar to all women athletes. According to Johnstone (2018), language that can
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connect the audience to the content of promotional advertisements can be considered as a
particular form of discourse. This kind of media representation attracts non-specialist
audiences to the main content of the advertisement. In the Dream Crazier ad campaign, the
narrator is performing an action to encourage women to show their craziness to the world
through achieving success. As mentioned by Wortham and Reyes (2015), this kind of action
performing speech refers to ‘language-in-action' for elaborating heavy context. This
promotional communication of Nike has been designed wisely with the voice of Serena
Williams. She is a role model to women athletes as her journey towards success is
inspirational. Her own agony and feelings are being expressed through her speech and the
main creativity of makers of this ad campaign. The narrator has been selected based on her
close relationship with the target audience and this is the key factor that makes Nike a unique
brand within the sports industry. This ad campaign is showing organizational discourse and it
is stating the viewpoint of this brand regarding equal rights for men and women. As stated by
Franzosi (2017), discourse analysis helps to understand the effectiveness of the narrator. In
the Dream Crazier Ad campaign, the real author of this ad is not the narrator. However, the
company has chosen Serena William as the Narrator as she can influence the thought process
of audience by her professional background.
At the beginning of this ad, Serena has stated different situations in which women athletes are
being judged by society. According to Wodak (2015), the struggle women do to chase their
dream is way different from the male's struggle for achievement and appreciation may help
them to be motivated for achieving success. The language of Serena in this ad is very clear
and constructive. It is a powerful approach and this speech can motivate women to fight for
their equal rights. The creative content of this advertisement is potent enough to influence
perspective of society towards women athletes. In addition, this content may influence all
women to chase their dreams by using their craziness.
Media and advertisement strategy
Dream crazier has highlighted female athletes who have broken different barriers and
inspired other women through their performance. Social media such as, YouTube is chosen to
advertise this strategy, which promotes equality and women empowerment. Audience
analysis technique of public opinion formation can be chosen for evaluating this strategy.
Dream crazier is an effective advertising campaign that depicts unequal opportunities given
to women and some stereotypical thoughts of society. As opined by Hampton et al. (2014),
media and advertising are also involving in stereotypical portrayals of men and women that
limit perception of human possibilities. In other media and advertising strategies, men are
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portrayed as active, powerful and adventurous. On another hand, women are portrayed as
thin, beautiful, and dependent. In addition, females are considered as sex objects in media. As
stated by Ferguson (2018), males are shown as aggressive and engaged in sports that create a
stereotype that men can only be suitable for sports. However, the campaign of dream crazier
shows that women also have the same aggression and power. They are eligible to get equal
opportunity. This advertising campaign can create a public opinion to give equal
opportunities to women in sports. This campaign has highlighted the stereotypes and through
of the society regarding women. In many developing countries women are not given the
opportunity to set their career in sports or in other activities. A public opinion can be formed
through this advertisement and media regarding these negative forces in society.
Positive portrayals of women can generate a public opinion regarding equal rights and
empowering women. However, in reality, women are underrepresented or misrepresented in
the society (Neubaum and Krämer, 2017). People judge them based on their stereotypic
thought process and prevent them to build career. Dream crazier is a campaign that
successfully created an opinion among women in society. This campaign has been shown
during Oscar and it gained near about 6 million views on YouTube. In addition, 28 million
has been achieved by this campaign on Twitter and many women reacted positively while
watching the commercial.
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The main target audiences of this campaign are women who are underprivileged and faced
inequality from society. Through this campaign, Nike has created a positive reaction among
these audiences and at the same time popularized their slogan of just do it. Banaszak and
Ondercin (2016) stated that public opinion formation can be done a preferable strategy of
advertising. This action can be done by studying the present condition of target audience. At
present, women all over the globe are facing discrimination and inequality. In sports, they
have not been offered equal opportunities and only considered as weak personality.
Moreover, Dream Crazier has also shown the way to women for achieving the success. It
stated that to achieve success in life it is essential to be crazy. This can create positive energy
among women who are deprived off from equal opportunities. In other advertising strategies,
they are shown as a housewife who supports men in their success. Dream crazier campaign
has created a public opinion for this audience to give all the effort to become successful in
life.
The society shows women are incompetent and sports are men’s authority and it is currently
represented by the media. Dream crazier has tried to create a public opinion regarding this
stereotype by using the voice of a famous tennis player who has succeeded in a career. This
media and advertising strategy can create a public opinion for providing an equal chance to
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women and stop discrimination. Hence, advertising of the brand can be done by providing a
positive message to the society and target audience can be empowered through this procedure
(King, 2016). Women are portrayed in this advertisement as empowered and full of
opportunities.
Positioning and audience processing
Advertisements are the mode of promotional communication and aim of advertisers is to grab
attention of audience towards their content. According to Ardèvol-Abreu (2015), different
theories are considered while developing any promotional content by large organizations. In
case of the Dream Crazier ad campaign of Nike, this company has planned for developing an
effective message. Target audience of this company is sportspersons and content of this video
have included struggle of women athletes for gaining equal opportunity. Framing theory can
be considered as appropriate for this particular campaign. This theory is the adapted form of
the agenda-setting theory and it is concern about diverting attention of audience by media
towards their desired subject. As mentioned by Burgers et al. (2016), this theory is usually
used to evaluate the effect of media on their target audience. Framing a message refers to
developing constructive content to drive minds of audience towards a specific subject. The
design of the Dream Crazier ad campaign has been developed for targeting female athletes
towards this brand. Nike is renowned for its sports products and main target consumers of
this brand are sports persons. This company has considered the content of framing theory to
develop a message that has been conveyed through this ad campaign.
The message Nike has spread through this campaign is about women empowerment in the
field of sports. This company has tried to spread the message of empowering women by
providing them equal opportunities like male athletes. As mentioned by Bösehans and
Walker (2018), advertisement makers first decide the form of presentation for their target
audience. Message is developed for providing information in the context of choices, action,
and issues sought from the target audience. In this case, Nike has identified the struggle of
women athletes to chase their dreams and it has become the content of this campaign. The
narrator of this ad campaign is Serena Williams and she can relate with the content of this ad
easily. Due to this reason, she has narrated the message developed by the author and has
succeeded to convey this message to the target audience. In addition, the women athletes are
relating their struggle to this message and keeping trust this brand for this perspective of this
organization. The approach of the message of this campaign has helped Nike to maintain the
position of their brand. Nike has successfully framed their message with simple content and
has touched the hearts of their women athletes those are the target audience of this campaign.
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Effective audience processing of Sports Company helps them to draw attention to society
(Cacciatore et al. 2016). It has spread the message of women empowerment and equal rights
for females. These subjects are very sensitive and people get influenced by this kind of social
messages. Analysis of this ad campaign of Nike has disclosed that this company has used one
kind of negative advertising to make their message more sensible. Negative advertisement is
used to make an in-depth impact of advertisement on the target audience (Dowling and
Wichowsky, 2015). It has narrated that society has always judged and women by stereotypes
and never provide equal opportunity to them. This company has tried to represent themselves
as motivators of women athletes. The style of framing their message is clearly showing that
women are being judged and it is high time that women fight for their equal rights. However,
women athletes are equally praised by the major part of society. This ad is conveying
message of woman empowerment for getting attention of entire society.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the dream crazier campaign is a
successful promotional strategy that has highlighted a social problem creatively. This
commercial advertisement has highlighted a stereotype in the society of showing men all
powerful. This discriminates women and they are unable to achieve equal opportunities.
Through the help of this positive message towards society regarding the empowerment of
women, Nike has promoted its brand and slogans of Just do it. The main target audience of
this commercial advertisement is women, who face different problems like discrimination
and when they try to achieve something they are called crazy. Dream crazier has tried to
establish a positive message by motivating women to achieve success in sports. This is a
social message that can help to confront violence against women and help them to protest
against any discrimination. This campaign has helped to form public opinion in society.
Recommendations
Different recommendations can be done on the basis of this promotional campaign.
Focusing light on other issues: Nike has only highlighted the issue of equal opportunities for
women in sports. However, they face discrimination in every part of their life. Domestic
violence, sexual harassment in the workplace is some of the issues that are impacting this
audience and they must be motivated to protest against these malpractices. As a leading
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company, it is their duty to shed light on these social problems. Women need to be motivated
to organize protest against this discrimination.
Clarity of the message in the slogan: In the campaign of dream crazier, internal message is
not clear in the slogan. Audience must understand the purpose of slogan after viewing or
hearing it. Internal message of this slogan is related with providing equal opportunities to all,
especially women and elimination of any sort of discrimination. A slogan needs to be catchy
and attractive that depicts mission of the organization or any campaign. In this campaign of
Nike, Dream crazier is chosen as a slogan, which does not provides any message regarding
equality or negligence that women faces in the society. Moreover, audience can get engaged
or motivated only after viewing the whole video. Hence, target audience can be engaged in a
proper way and aim and objectives of a campaign can be fulfilled in a proper way.
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