Brand Imaging

brand and image using “an overweight…unskilled footballer with no apparent talent”.Large organisations such as Nike do not seem to heavily focus on advertising their product features, but instead, focus on their brand image. Products can change, as can features, but brands, if successful, can last decades. For instance if you hear Nike’s slogan “Just Do It” you do not think of the high performance plastic used in the making of the trainers, but instead think of how well you could perform in Nike clothing, trainers, equipment etc… Nike has instilled this implicit ideology into its consumer through many advertising campaigns.  The Secret Tournament campaign used by Nike in 2002 is a prime example. Eight teams of three are shown sneaking through the shadows to convene on a giant disused container ship for the sudden death match, which features football players such as, Brazilian Ronaldo, Arsenal striker Thierry Henry, Brazilian Roberto Carlos, Portuguese player Luis Figo and Manchester United's Paul Scholes. Eric Cantona appears dressed in a suit and carrying a cane to play ringmaster in the contest. The fact that there is a host of well-known international football players that take part in the campaign automatically links Nike with skill and high quality performance. However the surroundings and the way in which the football players are presented takes the emphasis off of the high pay each of them receive and focuses more on the skill of each player. This is a major ideological message of the campaign. The fact that the players are playing in such poor conditions and in such an aggressive manor implicitly implies that each player is competing in the competition for the love of the game and nothing else. Eric Cantona also plays a key role in the campaign. Cantona know for his aggressive manor on the pitch puts further emphasis on the aggressiveness in which the tournament is played. Not one Nike product is advertised throughout the campaign which links back to the ideological message that suggests the game is about the skill and love for the game and not money. Benetton also work hard at maintaining their brand image. Like Nike, Benetton also use the power of advertising to do this. Benettons’ campaigns never advertise their products, but instead raise world issues such as aids, world hunger and in the case of the Death Row campaign, capital punishment. The Death Row campaign sympathetically portrays American murderers awaiting execution, which inevitably has caused massive amounts of controversy. It is this controversy that is the key to Benettons brand image. Olivero Toscani the creator of the Benetton campaigns believes that, “ad agencies are obsolete. They're out of touch with the times; they're far too comfortable. When the client is happy, they stop trying. They don't want to know what's going on in the world. They create a false reality and want people to believe in it. We show reality and we're criticised for it.”   With the amount of controversy surrounding the Benetton campaigns it has inevitably caused a split in Benettons potential market. There are people who will be offended be the advertising campaigns and those who will not and this is how Benettons brand image has been created. Benetton have aimed at the consumer who is concerned with world issues and by doing this have created the image that buying their clothing is a way of showing that you care which is an example of the implicit ideology used by Benetton.