In the past two years Nike has shown its support for controversial issues such as standing with Colin Kaepernick with their “Dream Crazy” ad. They received major backlash with people burning their products or calling them out on social media.
Now, Nike decided to release yet another ad which aired during the 2019 Academy Awards ceremony, “Dream Crazier”.
The worldwide renowned company used tennis star Serena Williams as their spokesperson to bring attention to the divide between men and women in the workforce, an issue that Serena Williams took on after the 2018 U.S. Open that led to her dispute with the umpire leading to her calling him a “thief”.
After the umpire fined and took a game from Williams it sparked a much needed conversation on the double standard against women in sports. A debate amongst well known people also occurred on Twitter having people such as tennis legend, Billie Jean King, James Blake and Gabrielle Union speak out on her support.
The 90-second ad featured Serena Williams, gymnast Simone BIles, fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad and many more iconic female athletes.
“If we show emotion, we’re called dramatic. If we want to play against men, we’re nuts. And if we dream of equal opportunity, delusional,” Williams says as the voice over during the ad.
“But a woman running a marathon was crazy. A woman boxing was crazy. A woman dunking, crazy. Coaching an NBA team, crazy. A woman competing in a hijab; changing her sport; landing a double-cork 1080; or winning 23 grand slams, having a baby, and then coming back for more, crazy, crazy, crazy, and crazy,” Williams says during the ad.
The footage included the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and Sam Gordon, the 15-year-old female football player.
The ad ended with Serena Williams stating: “So if they want to call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do.”
Although, many people say that this is just a marketing strategy, there’s some good coming out of this that cannot be denied.
Not only does this have to do with the sports industry but it’s about the change that still needs to occur in our society. No matter how much progress we have done, there are more women in congress now than ever, the battle is not over yet.
Young girls watching this ad can now believe that maybe being crazy isn’t so bad after all.