Intriguing thinking on Nike's part

Anybody who's seen Nike's new ad featuring Tiger Woods can immediately sense its unconventional marketing approach.  The commercial features narration by Woods' late father Earl, whose vocal likeness to his son's is unmistakable, and uses the parental figure to allude to both the golfer's very public indiscretions and his psychological makeup.

It's a reverse tactic on Nike's part.  In many ways, the ad further exploits Woods' behaviour as a means to promote, well, Tiger Woods.  It's also shrewd and well played, since Woods' currency as a 'refined' public personality -  his past life -  has run out.   It'll be interesting to see how the public responds to it.  To me, it's engineered to a tee; not unlike the material promoting Woods before his legendary public meltdown.  "Woods the man" has always been controlled and calculated, much in the way that "Woods the professional golfer" has taken to the links.  His public persona has always been manicured.  What this commercial makes abundantly clear is that press conferences with the crying, confessions and hugging (of sponsor representatives!!!) are very much part of the act as well.  It started with the shirtless tough guy photographs that Annie Leibowitz took of Woods for Vanity Fair, produced prior to the debacle and released afterward, and takes us to this point with Nike.   Good times or bad, Woods will remain a sculpted figure in the media, it is who he is.   

Neo-Nazi Afrikan Group fires warning shot at World Cup 2010

Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging logo

 Eugene Terreblanche

As promised, problems have already begun for World Cup 2010 organizers as The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), a South African White-Supremacist group formed in the 70s, is threatening racial violence at the tournament after their leader Eugene Terreblanche was murdered.  Terreblanche formed the group in reaction to former South African Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster's liberal views.  Strangely, Johannes was pro-Apartheid.  I guess Terreblanche was seeking a more visceral control of the state from the country's leadership post.

81 Days before Kickoff

With 81 days to go before the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa kicks off, hotel arrangements have not yet been made for the football squads...  Disorganization indeed. 

Stay tuned to Defending Champions for coverage leading up to the event.

In this Corner - up on the site...

Up and Running

Finally got my own website up and running...  I've permanently placed the URL in my links section.

www.marclosier.ca

Research, process, new work, etc...  Check it out!

On second thought...

 

  

My previous post, and I know it's been a while, came not long after the start of the 2010 Vancouver Games.  I was still seething over the event's opening ceremonies (I still think they were dreadfully embarrassing), not to mention the numerous technical gaffes that ensued due to the VANOC's noble insistence for a 'clean' Games. Still, just as Cito Gaston, skip of the Toronto Blue Jays, like to say "the Major Leagues is not the place to learn how to throw strikes."  In turn, I must say that the Olympic Games is not the place to test your electrical Zamboni!

Nevertheless, there was much to like about the experience, most of it having to do with our athletes.  Despite a shaky start and some awful alpine skiing, the Canadian team was full marks for their golden results, proving that the now infamous Own The Podium program did in fact work.  I think history will be kind to Vancouver 2010.  Looking back 20 years from now,  I can't see anybody remembering much about the weather or the failed electric zambonis, choosing instead to remember how the Olympic Village rallied around the tragic death of an athlete, the courageous performances of a Canadian figure skater and Slovenian cross country skier, and the heart stopping hockey game between Canada and our neighbours in the United States.  

I have to agree with Dr. Jacques Rogge, head of the IOC, when he said that "Vancouver was an excellent and very friendly Games", but I think in time, history will show that it was much more. I cannot see many other cities or countries for that matter being able to overcome some of the obstacles Vancouver had in its way.  

To all the self-righteous British and Russian journalists who laid into these Canadian Olympic Games with their sharp blades, North American journalists will patiently wait your turn in London 2012 and Sochi 2014 to see how well you fare.  In the end, it was the athletes who made these Games and uplifted our country, and that's the way it should be.

 

Who Can Resist?

The 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver are in danger of gaining the infamous distinction of Worst Games Ever!  I have to say, I'm not surprised.  Not after the disastrous start this Olympics got off to with the death of luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvils;  a crash the Wall Street Journal claims was exacerbated, or perhaps even caused, by commercial interests within VANOC's to build the track in a high traffic tourist area near Whistler in order to maximize potential revenues for the facility once the games are over:

Wall Street Journal:

Tim Gayda, the vice president of sport for the Vancouver organizing committee, told the Vancouver Sun in October 2002 that the decision would make the track financially viable after the Games.
"In order to make this thing financially sustainable, we want it someplace where people will pay top dollar to go whipping down this thing in both summer and winter," Mr. Gayda told the newspaper. The luge and bobsledding federations, he added, were "pushing us to look at options at Whistler." 

The problems only start here.  I don't care what anybody says, the opening ceremonies were an unmitigated Western Canadian influenced disaster.   No mention of Ontario or its diversity, barely a sniff of Quebec, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the West, to the Prairies, to the Maritimes, heavily laden with First Nations symbolism.  Now, I'm all for inclusiveness, but in my dictionary, inclusiveness means 'inclusiveness'.  The rest of Canada, not to mention THE WORLD, should never have hit the sack after the opening ceremonies thinking Canada's diversity was derived solely from White English culture and First Nations culture.  Where was Donovan Bailey?  Where were the East and South Asian influences that have shaped Vancouver into a so-called world class city, worthy to host the Games?  Where was French-Canada?  Where were the country's great Caribbean and European influences?

What does it say about VANOC when they spliced together a 20 minute dance sequence in the wheat fields of the Prairies, but there's no mention of the skylines from our great cities?  I just can't resist: It says  Unsophisticated and corny.  This, not to mention the unmitigated logistical disaster that has become of the competitions.  I can't seem to watch a speedskating or skiing event without having to wait out delays because there's no snow, or the zamboni is broken.  Is it a coincidence that Vancouver is the mildest city - temperature wise - to ever host the Winter Games?

Stands to reason Alex Bilodeau was the first Canadian to win gold here in Vancouver - at least someone is speaking up for Quebec.