New Balance Gets Running
Here's something we can identify with: the love/hate relationship with running. "Every day with running is a question of your commitment," this New Balance ad observes. "And running is not afraid to ask."
It's cheesy in some respects, but on the whole it reads like a motivating anthem for those that do tear themselves out of Sleepy Time Station to wrestle concrete, icy air and reluctant limbs. The work/play, love/hate balance is played up to make way for the tagline: This is the New Balance. Gotta love a well-situated pun.
Put together by BBDO/NY. Much cooler than the desperate-to-please NB Zips thing that New Balance did last year.
Comments
I think these New Balance ads are fantastic. They got me to the point where I'm considering getting back in to running. These deliver the emotional hook that the new Nike runnings ads from CP+B didn't. Now the irony here is that I've always been a Nike running shoe guy. So while the New Balance ads are getting me to consider running again, I'm still looking at Nike shoes.
Sure great ads - but who ever made the interpretation from ad to billboard FAILED. They are all over Denver - and you can't read them. I'm all for minimal text, but what's there should be big enough to read while you zip past.
This is definitely a motivating ad. I love the mood, the undertones. I'd love it more if I hadn't seen What Women Want for the umpteenth time two weeks ago.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not slagging the ad. I think BBDO did a great job of demonstrating what we all strive to achieve in life and how difficult and rewarding it can truly be to make the choice.
I suppose the creative challenge - which belongs to all of us - is: how do we find what has not yet been done? When "it's all been done before" where do we go to find something new? In a world that is moving faster everyday and access to it all prevails, what is "new"?
As an active member of the creative communications community, I'm inspired by the challenge and hope to see some inspiring responses to it. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling it.
Whoa. I totally thought about "What Women Want" too.
Ha! I think they're a total rip of the campaign in What Women Want, but I always thought that campaign was clever enough to be real, so it doesn't bother me.