Thinking About The ’96 Olympics

Moments after the Los Angeles’ Olympics, Nike let Barker Ajax go.  Just about the time his stock options vested.  Had a non-compete-clause, which prohibited employment by another athletic company for ten years.  Which seemed excessive.  But he didn’t like working anyway, so…   Meetings and committees and regulations and appointments, why not just put on an electric choke collar.

And now his twenty-year non-disclosure clause with Brooks had expired.  Before he did the same, wanted to set the record straight.

Rolling thunder sometimes comes astride whispers.

I am sending you a subliminal message about the Code of Wild Dog.  It’s not enough to give permission, e.g., Just Do It: you owe it to yourself and the people you care about to offer objective assistance, if possible.  Stand for something as a company.  March on Atlanta.  Assist the victims.

DECLARE EVERY BROOKS ATHLETE A WINNER NO MATTER WHAT PLACE THEY FINISH. It’s not where you finish, but how you finish.

The Olympic motto, translated, goes something like this… “swifter, higher, stronger.”

New slogan…. BROOKS: Faster, Farther, Smarter.

Get there sooner, go beyond expectations, use your head. That’s Brooks Style.

Might be time to resuscitate Rudyard Kipling’s IF.

Shoooosh.

Here are some way off the top of my head ideas.

Which should in no way suggest I could come up with anything significantly superior if given more time.  Seems like you would have enough time to unroll a wide-ranging strategic campaign playing off the Olympics in Atlanta based on your desire to paint Brooks as the unauthorized marketer of Olympic athletic shoes.  March maybe?  Every other shoe company is trying to hook up with a intraplanetary celebrity superstar, Brooks is with the guy or gal on the street trying to become his or her own hero.

Establish yourself as your own absolute. Then get real.

THE MARCH ON ATLANTA.

The Smallest Peacetime Event In History.

You. Alone On The Road.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.

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We’re Not Going. We’re Staying Home.

And Working Out.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.

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We’re Not There.

We’re Gone.

Gone. With The Wind.

Faster, Farther, Smarter.

Brooks.

———————————————

Tape The Damn Thing.  Get To Bed.

Big Run Tomorrow.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.

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It’s Not About Winning.  Not About Losing.

They only give medals to the first three.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.  Farther, Faster, Smarter.

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Never been an official sponsor.

As a company we’ve never gone to the Olympics.

Our shoes? That’s another story.

And we’re not allowed to talk about it.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.

———————————————-

Our Shoes Endorse Themselves.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.  GONE.  WITH THE WIND.

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Athletes use our shoes.

We don’t use our athletes.

Become Your Own Hero.

Brooks.

____________________________

Barker Ajax could be the sport’s next Dr. George Sheehan.  The man can sell shoes. How provide forum?  Hire Ajax to do a Brooks magazine.  The magazine would be a good start.  Locate where? On the road.  Atlanta.  100th Boston.  Your athletes will be skipping a lot of the best dates because it is an Olympic year.  Yet you need a presence.  Barker Ajax is his own media circus.

Create your own media, get on the Net/Web.  Free distribution at specialty shops; instead of a shoe box insert, put a number of copies of the mag in an empty shoe box and ship it to selected retailers.  Involve’em with something readable.

Create bottom – up, inside-out word of mouth.  Create new heroes.  You own their logo.  Combine the old Running magazine with Wild Dog philosophy: sports, literature and a revolution of spirit. Reprint great articles from the past. Reprint a superior story about, let’s say, Jim Ryun and you associate his name and exploits with your product.

Try out new ads. Promote literacy.  Keep the torch lit.  Use the magazine as a marketing tool to promote your athletes and the sport in general.  Speak out.  Take sides.  Give the athletes voice.

What is your involvement with rap, positive self-esteem lyrics and anti-Newt slogans and snowboards and tattoos and piercings?

Soundtrack?  Sonny Bono, singing “I Don’t Care. Let’em laugh at me. Laugh at me and I’ll cry for you. And I’ll pray for you. It’s gotta stop someplace. It’s gotta stop sometime. Say “Hi. Instead of why, baby.” Former wife-beater and erstwhile mayor of Palm Springs, the Congressman sings so badly no one has ever co-opted this unforgettable ditty. And when you think about it, not too deeply, he became his own hero.

It’s called satire. You, Brooks, are the Spy magazine of shoe companies.  Just for the point of argument, forget that Spy is old and dead. You know what I mean. Try to remember I live deep in the woods, no mail, no television, no news.  Give also a listen to “And I Love Him” by Esther Phillips.  I have this idea for a killer video about women athletes and their dogs. Actually, that is the idea.

Commission your own music. Advertise uniquely. Instead of talking about the ghetto or love, talk about some of the other problems, real issues of the times, like the defense budget, the haves dominating the have-nots, Ollan Cassell, Rush Limbaugh, anybody with the word ASSHOLE written on his forehead. Compile an album in different musical styles. Call it politics. Brooks has to get political with the people they want wearing their shoes. How do you get your agenda across to the voters?  Ollan Casell is the same guy Steve Prefontaine was battling.  And Pre was the good guy.  Casell is still in charge and Pre has been dead more than twenty years.

Recapture the glory days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=berHdguUts0