Thursday, April 8, 2010

Tiger Woods and Nike's New Ad


When I was in school many years ago we had the assignment to pull different ads from newspapers and magazines to analyze just what was being said. That was a simple assignment compared to the analyzing the messages of the digital age

This Tiger Woods ad has been judged as brilliant by professionals in the field. It will convince millions that some sort of father/son conversation is taking place where middle class values are reinforced and Tiger sees the light. On some subconscious level, we will all take this as a real event. That is how moving pictures work. That's why we scream when we see a horror movie. I know that I am in a theater, eating popcorn but my physical systems think I am in the movie. That's why I want to run from a picture on the screen. Millions will believe that this is how Tiger feels and that this is what Earl Woods, his father, would think and say. Those millions will believe it with absolutely no evidence that either Tiger or Earl feel that way.

Earl's been dead since 2006 but that's not so long that Tiger wasn't playing his tricks at the time. Gossip has it that Earl played some tricks of his own. What basis do we have to believe that Earl would be asking "What have you learned?" with the implication that fidelity is best. None, as far as I'm concerned. What basis does Nike have for using a dead man in this way?

This video is very well done propaganda. It should be studied in depth by all of us.

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