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Abstract:
This semiotic analysis of early Nike women's advertising explores the evolution of the women's brand from its launch in 1990 through 2000, and includes twenty-seven print campaigns. The semiotic analysis is enhanced by in-depth interviews of the creative team. The study is framed by a single research question. What symbolically ties these ten years of advertising into a cohesive whole and how? Ultimately, three distinct mediated communities emerge. The story behind these communities, expressed semiotically and orally, suggests that the power of this advertising lies in its mediated construction of community life. The resonance of these ads is rooted in the creatives' ability to construct signifiers that reflect the cultural and social experiences of women, with storytelling as the single most binding force across this ten-year period.
They asked us to build a community of strong and healthy women.
- Josie (pseudonym) Art Director, May 2000
I. Nike as Community
If there is one area that exemplifies the gender-bound experience of community, it is sports. It is the gender-bound experience of sports that frames early Nike women's advertising in the first decade. Today, females' participation in sports is greater than ever before (Women's Sports Foundation). One of the crucial factors increasing female participation in sports was the passage of Title IX in 1976. Title IX created opportunities in the sports arena previously unavailable to women. Females' participation in sports grew slowly in the years immediately following its passage. However during the 1990s females participation in sports began to steadily climb (Women's Sports Foundation). This is also the same period during which Nike women's advertising debated.
Unfortunately, many scholars misunderstand the genesis of Nike women's advertising (Cole and Hribar 1996; Goldman and Papson 1998; Helstein 2003; Lafrance 1998; Lucus 2000) and thus make erroneous assumptions sometimes incorrectly dating or naming ads and/or campaigns. Other times erroneous assumptions are made about how and why the ads are produced, without any apparent discussion with the individuals who produced the ads. Clearly, during the 1990s Nike engaged in questionable labor practices and saw their corporate image tarnished (Anderson 1995; Korzeniewicz 1994; Stabile 2000). Nonetheless, there is value in semiotically analyzing this body of advertising, without the undue influence of Nike's labor practices. With this caveat in mind,...