culturally imperialist, and probably racist. Writing in Advertising Age, Bob Garfield called the ad "neo-colonialist. "Appallingly insensitive," declared Stuart Elliott in the New York Times. He then scrambles to his feet and runs away, still trying to shake the shoes from his feet.Ĭhuck McBride wasn't the only person who hated the ad. When the runner awakens, he sees the sneakers and begins shouting and flailing. While he is passed out, the white men force a pair of Nikes on his feet.
The runner drinks the water, and immediately collapses to the ground, unconscious. The men drive ahead to offer the runner a cup of water laced with a knockout drug. The ad opens with a shot of white men in a military Humvee tracking the footprints of a barefoot black Kenyan runner. "The minute I saw it, I immediately went 'Oh, shit,' and I went, 'This can't go on.' I just couldn't believe that they had done this." 31, when he first saw the Just for Feet ad. We want to shop with you.'"Ĭhuck McBride, creative director at Wieden, Kennedy and lead creative on the Nike account, remembers his reaction on the evening of Jan. "What we wanted was for people to see this and say, 'Boy, that was terrific. "What we were looking to do was to start to build our brand," he told me. As he saw it, the ad would bring about a groundswell of public goodwill. Ruttenberg thought the expense was worth it. Four months later, by the time the spot was beamed out to an estimated 127 million households, Just for Feet had wagered almost $7 million on the game - $1.7 for the media buy, $3 million to hire an ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi Business Communications of Rochester, N.Y., and an additional $2 million to take out newspaper ads in every market in which it did business, alerting shoppers and franchise owners to Just for Feet's third-quarter Super Bowl triumph, and reminding them to keep their eyes peeled. The hoopla, as Ruttenberg would soon learn, didn't come cheap. Here was an opportunity to tell our story to the largest audience in the world." It's a very dynamic atmosphere we have in our stores. "We're a family type of retailer that caters to a family atmosphere," he says. He says he couldn't wait to tell viewers about the footwear chain's friendly atmosphere, its neighborliness, its reputation for social responsibility. "We had never before created hoopla." Now, here was a chance to burnish Just for Feet's corporate reputation and brand image on a national scale. "We specialize in selling shoes, not commercials," Ruttenberg says. 6 in Fortune magazine's recent list of "America's Fastest Growing Companies," Just for Feet had never before tried its hand at national brand advertising. Though a public corporation with over $775 million in annual sales, ranked No.
Last fall, when Just for Feet CEO Harold Ruttenberg learned his company had nailed down a coveted time slot for a third-quarter Super Bowl ad, the sneaker mogul could hardly contain his jubilation.
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