"Just do it" and "Impossible is nothing"

Nike and Adidas are two brands that have been working and spending millions of dollars in advertising and marketing campaigns over the years, and this is why they are known in the last decades to have some of the most memorable slogans and are some phrases that people relate to these brands.

For Nike, their slogan has been the same for many years, “Just do it” which is a simple and direct phrase that inspires people and makes them feel powerful when they wear Nike products. This slogan makes people feel like they should not be afraid of doing something and gives people confidence when they wear and use Nike products, to work for what they want and as the phrase itself says it just do it because you will be able to accomplish any goal you set.

For Adidas, the story is a little different, since their most famous slogan that was used for decades was “Impossible is nothing”, but they changed it a couple years ago to “All in” and then changed again to “Adidas is all in”. For the first slogan is clear how they are trying to tell people that when they buy and use their products there is nothing that they cannot accomplish and that there is no limit to their goals. Their other two slogans after are somehow a continuation of this, saying that when you have a goal you have to go “All in” if you want to accomplish it, and is a way to encourage people to work harder to reach their goals and encourage them to put in the effort to be the best they can be.

The main reason for them to have slogans like this is because they are trying to give more value to their products, by relating them with these inspiring phrases. The reason why they want to do this is that if they relate their products with these slogans when people buy their products and use them they feel like they can actually do what these slogans say and they relate with what the brand stands for, which makes their products more valuable. One article in Campaign magazine talks about how Nike’s slogan “Just do it” is “arguably the best tagline of the 20^th century” (Campaign, 2015). They also talk about how effective and useful this slogan is since it makes “consumers believe they could be successful too just by wearing its products” (Campaign, 2015). As they said in the article too, they are looking for a way to “establish a personal connection with the brand” (Campaign, 2015), this creates more value for the customer because it is not just a product that is useful, but also has a meaning and is something that gets the customer confident about themselves and about their abilities to reach their goals. Adidas also has a similar approach, but one of the most interesting facts about their first slogan “Impossible is nothing” is that they created it from something that Muhammad Ali said once. They wanted to show his main point of view; that the only limits that you have are the ones that you say you have, but if you believe you can achieve your goals you will always be able to because the only thing that’s stopping you from reaching them is your own mind. This is the same idea that Adidas tries to connect with their products, so people feel this confident when they buy their products. (Waiz, 2013)