Everyone has an image in their head of what they look like. Reflect on that image for a minute.
This past summer, I was in the market for a new bathing suit. Had five years passed already? Remembering that my most recent bathing suit bore the Nike logo, I went to the Nike website to pursue my next purchase. It was there, after only about two minutes of browsing, that I came across the above image. I quickly closed all applications and shut down my laptop.
Are you sure you want to shut it down?
Yes, I’m sure.
The image has haunted me since.
To be clear, I am not troubled by heavyset people or images of them. (Heavyset you say? Huh, I didn’t even notice.) I fully acknowledge that beauty comes in many forms and people come in all shapes and sizes. And who among us can’t stand to lose a few pounds?
No, this one has haunted me because it upsets all of my previously held notions regarding the relationship between the makers of the things I buy, and me. When I see this photo, delivered to me intentionally to induce me to purchase a bathing suit, I wonder what business I have even buying a bathing suit. Am I even eligible to wear one? Do I have to lie to get my hands on one?
This is an image that should be used to sell bathing suits on the spaceship in Wall-E, not on planet Earth today. Let’s just add this to the list of images demonstrating the chasm between the world of 2024 and the world as I understood it. Exhibit number 2,758.
I already know what some of you are going to say. Ridicule all you want, but the person modelling this bathing suit looks a lot more like the average consumer than the typical bathing suit model, who is usually blessed with a genetically-freakish twelve-pack. Between those two options, this magnificent bastard is likely a better representative of the person who will ultimately buy this product.
This is fair, even if overstated, but it also completely overlooks the reality of how sales and marketing work, or at least how I thought they were supposed to work. Effective marketing should be aspirational. The person in the advertisement is not intended to show you as you actually exist in the world; it is intended to show the best version of you in the world. It is Panglossian, promising the best of all possible yous. It is the person you want to be, the person you aspire to be, the person you believe yourself to be, and the best advertising should make that version of you seem plausible, attainable, such that you will buy the product on the promise of the result.
I always trusted that Nike understood this. It is a sales and marketing organization, after all. There’s a reason the silhouette of Michael Jordan is on the side of Air Jordan sneakers and not, oh, I don’t know, the guy in the bathing suit. Rule of thumb: if the silhouette can only be drawn reliably by tracing a round object, don’t put the silhouette on your athletic sneaker.
This is not about the consumer who happens to look like this guy. I have no beef with that person. God bless him. The question for Nike is: who is the consumer who aspires to look like that guy?
At best, one third of the original Fat Boys? Tops. (RIP Buff Love)
Personally, I aspire to be able to tie the strings on my bathing suit.
Today, the same Nike corporation that has deftly hinted for decades that I will play basketball as well as Michael Jordan if I buy his branded sneakers is the same Nike corporation that now bizarrely implies that I should abandon everything I know about everything and just buy the bathing suit this man is wearing. Why? For what reason?
It is important to understand that the use of this image for this purpose was the result of a series of conscious choices, which makes this all the more perplexing. In fact, there is likely only one person in this sordid tale who is even more baffled than I am. I’m thinking in particular of — you guessed it — the model who is wearing that bathing suit.
I applaud this guy for making a living as a model, and do not begrudge him his paycheck. But here is a man who showed up on a Monday morning for a photo shoot, checked the schedule, and couldn’t help but notice that he was going to be wearing the Men’s Five-inch Swim Volley Shorts.
Uh, ma’am, I saw that I’m scheduled to wear the swim trunks today? The five-inch swim trunks?
It’s not my place to tell you how to run your business, but I was wondering whether my talents might be better served wearing something else. Perhaps a track jacket? Maybe a pair of basketball shorts? A tasteful Cardigan?
I’m just saying that maybe the five-inch swim trunks, which are really short when you try them on, do not tend to emphasize what I would consider to be my strongest features.
Of all the products that Nike could use this model for, was their top choice really the five-inch swim trunks? Do you know how short five inches is on men’s shorts? It’s not just the proportions of the model that make this a dicey proposition. Men in America don’t normally wear five-inch long shorts. That is the domain of the skinny European, jumping off rock cliffs into crystal blue waters. In the America of the 48 contiguous states, in the America of bluish, brownish, greenish water hues, grown men shouldn’t be wearing anything that short, nor should they be diving off of anything. They should be sitting down, cracking open a beer, and shutting the fuck up.
Nike used to be good that way, but those days appear to be over. Now I have to wade through quite a menagerie of shapes and sizes just to buy a pair of men’s sweatpants. The silver lining is that after spending two minutes on Nike’s web site, I was able to convince myself that my old reliable swim trunks had another year left in them. I think I’m going to ride these bad boys out.
The experience also suggested to me that going swimming was probably overrated. Maybe it was time for me to improve my golf game, which is more appropriate at my age, anyway. To that end, I could really use a new pair of shorts.
Let’s see, the last pair of golf shorts I owned were from Nike….
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“This magnificent bastard…”