Nike’s “Dream Crazier” Campaign and The Issue of

Women Empowerment
1. Introduction

It is increasingly common for one person to stumble upon thousands of “women

empowerment” themed posts, events and illustrations on social media these days. The new trend
of women empowerment in marketing and public relation (PR) campaigns is based on the
assumption that people justify with logic and buy on emotion, which has since become the heart
of brand storytelling at a myriad of multinational corporates (Achar et al., 2016). Arguably, it is
Dove’s Real Beauty campaign in 2007 that commences the adoption of women empowerment
ideas in marketing and PR campaigns, focusing on defying stereotypes, helping women see
themselves differently and forgetting about gender norms. A variety of other brands have followed
in Dove’s footstep after the company generated more than US$1.5 billion dollars from its heart-
wrenching Real Beauty campaign, namely the “Always like a girl” campaign at the 2015’s
Superbowl (Cotton, 2019).

The rise of content marketing is attributed to women empowerment driven marketing

campaigns in the past decade when brands get to directly select which group of viewers that they
want to target with their short YouTube advertisement. Marketers do not solely focus on pitching
products anymore in view of the emergence of digital content; instead, they try to create engaging
content that makes consumers want more and win their loyalty (Pulizzi, 2012). Addressing social
issues such as women empowerment is one way to do so. Nevertheless, simply jumping on the
women empowerment bandwagon will not succeed unless companies can create a solid PR
campaign with relevant messages and stories. A prominent example of successful PR campaign
that addresses the issue of women empowerment is the “Dream Crazier” campaign by the world’s
leading footwear manufacturer – Nike.

2. Evaluation of Nike’s PR campaign

With its latest campaign called “Dream Crazier”, Nike has successfully sparked major
conversations across various media platforms and generated massive uproar on social media talks
around the world (Zishan, 2019). Its campaign highlights the achievements by female athletes,

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namely Serena Williams, Ibtihaj Muhammad and Chloe Kim who overcome major hurdles in both
their professional and personal lives to accomplish the impossible. The advertisement depicts
various stereotypes that women in the sport industry specifically and in any other industry in
general have to encounter. The stereotypes portrayed by athletes include being called dramatic
when women show emotions, being called nuts when they want to play against men, being called
delusional when they dream of equal opportunity, being considered unhinged when they stand for
something, and being irrational, hysterical or just plain crazy when they get angry or are too good.
Directed by Kim Gehrig through Somesuch and created by Alex Romans and Emma Barnett at
Wieden and Kennedy Portland (Zishan, 2019), the advertisement serves as an epitome honoring
woman athletes who have brought people together through sports, overcome their obstacles and
continuously inspired the next generation.

However, even though Nike’s campaign was delivered to the mass by virtue of an
advertisement debuted on the festive night of the Academy Awards in February 2019, it should
not be mistaken for a simple advertisement. In fact, PR and advertising play completely different
roles in a company’s marketing activities. Whereas advertising is creating paid announcements to
be promoted through different channels such as print, online, television, radio or out-of-home, PR
is a strategic communication process that establishes mutually beneficial relationships between the
public and the company (Michaelson and Stacks, 2007). In the case of Nike, its women
empowerment ad is part of its PR campaign in an attempt to reestablish its relationship with
consumers after almost damaging its reputation due to backlash on its “Dream Crazy” campaign
starring Colin Kaepernick. Unlike its former campaign which touched such a sensitive issue as
racism, the “Dream Crazier” campaign got appreciated by its targeted audience for being precise
and blunt with the core message. Besides, considering women empowerment and feminism
becoming the most discussed terms recently, Nike’s ad is in perfect alignment with the rationale
and emotions of its target group.

The PR campaign was conducted with clear declaration of Nike’s principles. Specifically,
the footwear brand has been supporting female athletes for more than 40 years (Monllos, 2019).
Its “Dream Crazier” campaign successfully displays Nike’s principle on openness that encourages
inclusivity, enables and inspires female athletes of all levels to reach their potential in not only
sports but all areas of life as well. Nike’s “Dream Crazier” campaign has become the pedestal

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standing where the new generations of female athletes are taking the step forward (Zishan, 2019).
Albeit its attempts to resolve the communication crisis and boycott threats resulting from the
controversial “Dream Crazy” campaign, Nike has always been open when levering social and
political statement. By openly addressing its statements on social issues and stepping out of the
comfort zone, Nike’s women empowerment campaign proved to be a winning strategy to increase
both brand awareness and market share.

The company’s PR professionals also exploit the social learning theory in its PR campaign.
According to Bandura and Walters (1977), through the influence of example, people learn of
different behaviors either inadvertently or deliberately. In other words, people observe their role
models including their friends, parents, teachers, celebrities or anyone who they admire and
respect. The social learning theory has gained prominence in the PR industry lately, with various
PR professionals achieving major success by applying the theory in their campaign (Vasquez and
Taylor, 2001). Pertaining to Nike, the brand has used this theory to its advantage through its
inspirational message aiming to show women and young girls that they can achieve even their
craziest dreams. Throughout the campaign, Nike portrayed to female audience that you can
accomplish anything irrespective of all the judgment, negativity and stereotypes against women in
sports. These young women then started to copy techniques for determination and began pursuing
their “crazy dreams”. By adopting the social learning theory, Nike’s PR professionals were able
to initiate a desired behavior amongst its target audience. Nike showed that the brand supports and
empowers women, and by using Nike’s products as do the female athletes featuring in the
campaign, they are empowered and encouraged to achieve even the impossible. As a result, the
audience subconsciously learned to copy the behavior and eventually purchased Nike’s products.

It can be said that Nike took a strategic and well thought out move when it launched the
“Dream Crazier” campaign during the Academy Awards. As the Academy Awards is one of the
most watched events on television every year, the campaign was able to reach a larger audience.
In addition, due to an increase by almost 30 million views of this year’s Oscars broadcast, Nike
could enjoy an increase by 12% in viewership, thereby delivering it to more of the right audience
(Anusic, 2019). After one day of publishing, the ad generated over 28 million views on Twitter
and more than 6 million views on YouTube (Sweeney, 2019). Overall, the reception was notably
positive with the majority of mentions were on Web, Twitter and Facebook. The hashtag “Just do

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it” by Nike, which also accompanies the ad in the new “Dream Crazier” campaign, was mentioned
more than 15 thousand times since its release. Compared to the period before, this figure reflects
an increase by more than 2000 percent. What is more, the total number of mentions of Nike also
rose significantly, with a reach of over 600 million people on the Internet, mostly on Twitter
(Brouwer, 2019). Unlike the previous “Dream Crazy” campaign, this time, the overall sentiment
of Nike’s mentions was positive overall.

The new campaign also reflects Nike’s adoption of the two-way symmetrical
communication theory. Grunig and Hunt (1984) develop the four models of public relations in
which the authors divide public relation practices into press agentry, public information, two-way
asymmetrical and two-way symmetrical models. Grunig (2013) asserts that most companies that
implement two-way symmetrical model have good communication and public relation systems.
Two-way symmetrical public relation model involves mutual interactions between more than one
party. It is based on real and two-way communication, and thus requires mutual respect and
understanding between the company who delivers the message and the audience who receives said
message in order to achieve the communication objectives and create positive media hype
(Matthee, 2011). For this reason, the model demands willingness from the organization involved
in public relation to negotiate, make changes and adjust to fit with the public’s requirements. Nike
has listened to feedback from the public on its “brand-damaging” campaign, learned from its
mistakes and made changes to its new campaign. The brand did not hesitate to make changes to
adapt to the requirements of the public, and thus achieved major success with its “Dream Crazier”
campaign.

Furthermore, the positive reception and immense success of the new campaign sheds light
on the fact that consumers still exhibit a preference for brands that supports breaking down gender
stereotypes and empowering women. Consumers admitted to liking a specific brand more than
others simply because it fights against gender inequality or stereotypes according to a survey by
Choozle (Zishan, 2019). This group of consumers also expressed their willingness to buy from
brands that address social issues in alignment with their values. Brands no longer act as a mere
name of companies these days. Instead, millennials and Generation Z have begun to perceive
brands as key agents that are expected to raise awareness and contribute to resolving important
political and social issues (Macchiette and Roy, 1994).

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 When it comes to public relation and marketing, Nike has received major acclaim for its
efforts recently. Apart from being praised as producing “must-watch” and empowering ads, Nike
is said to go beyond public relation when building a positive brand image. The brand is renowned
for delivering strong political and social statements, and take a stand on serious contemporary
issues. For instance, Nike featured South African athlete Caster Semenya in its “Dream Crazier”
amidst her fight against the International Association of Athletics Federation for claiming that she
has an unfair advantage over her competitors due to her naturally high testosterone levels. The
choice of protagonists in Nike’s PR campaign is also strategically measured when it had Serena
Williams narrate the story considering the fair share of difficulty and gender bias that she has to
overcome to reach where she is now.

3. Reflection

What I learned most from analyzing Nike’s PR campaign is its efficient use of a multi-
platform distribution strategy to maximize engagement and reach. Nike has successfully leveraged
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and television commercial with its “Dream Crazier” campaign. The
brand also both directly and indirectly made good use of the power of medial creators and
publishers. Particularly, the company worked with Serena Williams to have her post Nike’s ad on
her Instagram account, thus creating more buzz for the campaign. Nike also collaborated with
Ellen and NowThis to increase its reach and engagement. Ultimately, seven videos out of the top
ten most-watched posts relevant to the “Dream Crazier” campaign were from other social accounts
such as sports publishers, entertainment and media companies as well as celebrities (Sweeney,
2019). The successful campaign has the internet abuzz with a well-timed, well-placed and well-
developed PR strategy.

Nike’s new campaign is very reminiscent of Gillette’s “The Best Men Can Be” campaign.
However, many agree that Gillette should have learned from Nike’s campaign in basing its
marketing on social values and issues (Anusic, 2019). Gillette’s campaign portrayed many
unacceptable social behaviors as desirable and manly, and thus was condemned and boycotted by
the public. The company also announced its change in policy; yet, most consumers considered it
hypocritical. Unlike Gillette, Nike has always been consistent with its message in all of its PR
campaigns. The company’s values and culture should be defined and aligned with the brand image
as well as reflected in the communication and public relation processes. If such values or culture

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do not align with the social issues promoted, the brand might risk appearing insincere in the eye
of the consumers, especially with the rise of social media these days. Along this line, Nike has
always strived for and promoted the inclusion of all nationalities, genders, races and religions into
sports for decades.

4. Conclusion

In a nutshell, the success of Nike’s “Dream Crazier” campaign shows that brands can
effectively leverage social issues in their PR campaigns to win consumer love and trust.
Essentially, the brand earns organic conversation and coverage with a single yet impactful TV ad,
thereby drawing attention to the brand and ultimately resulting in increases in sales and market
share. Fortunately, Nike’s strategy is not inimitable. In fact, other brands can learn from Nike’s
example to produce well-executed PR campaign that addresses a social or political issue that is
aligned with the company’s value, then distribute it across multiple platforms and have the Internet
talk about their brands continuously.

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