33 So Win Evaluating Nike Aspirational Ads so You Can Win too

Podcast Summary: "So Win" – Evaluating Nike's Aspirational Marketing Mastery

(Beau Leadership Group with OPINIONS of host Bob Beaulaurier)

Hook: If you want to motivate people (teams, customers, or yourself) to actually take action and reach big goals, Nike’s legendary “So Win” ad featuring Caitlin Clark reveals the timeless playbook that turns attention into life-long loyalty and sales.

Key Takeaways in Bullet Points:

• Core Principle: “Attention follows aspiration, and aspiration converts.” Great marketing doesn’t just grab eyes — it makes people believe a better version of themselves is possible.
• Nike’s Big Bet: Historically spent ~20% of revenue on advertising (vs. competitors spending on patents/legal), because emotional connection predicts long-term purchasing far better than short-term metrics like reach or recall.
• The Nike Formula (used from Jordan to Caitlin Clark):
   
  • Emotion first: Confidence, courage, unapologetic excellence.
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  • Product always visible but never the hero — the brand rides the emotional wave.
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  • Aspirational identity: “This is who YOU could be.”
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• Why Caitlin Clark works perfectly right now:
   
  • Mass recognition + undeniable credibility (already historic at college & pro levels).
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  • Timing is perfect — drops right before New Year’s resolution season (“Get your Christmas Nikes and start winning in 2026”).
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• Science backs it up:
   
  • Harvard: Brands with strong emotional attachment create dramatically higher lifetime customer value.
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  • Wharton: Aspirational messaging where the ideal feels reachable (not just elite) drives stronger motivation and follow-through than fear or pure status marketing.
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• The shift in society: We now live in an “attention economy” where people don’t just watch greatness — they can play it (video games, avatars, social media). Aspiration has become interactive.
• Conversion > Creativity: Award-winning artsy ads are nice, but if they don’t turn desire into purchases, they fail as business (see: the annoying yet wildly successful Aflac duck).
• The deeper leadership truth:
   
  • Nike never says “You must BE Caitlin Clark/Michael Jordan.” They say “You can MOVE like her. You can COMPETE. You can TRY.”
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  • This is inclusive elevation, not exclusion — “Everyone is an athlete.”
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• Biblical tie-in for leaders: Run YOUR race with perseverance (Hebrews 12:1) and run in such a way as to get the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24) — discipline, growth, stewardship of your gifts.
• Bottom line: Aspirational leadership done right isn’t manipulation — it’s motivation. The brands (and leaders) who win don’t chase attention… they earn it by lifting people up and inviting them to become the best version of themselves.

Perfect 15-minute listen for anyone who wants to inspire their team, customers, or themselves to stop dreaming and start winning in 2026.

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Transcript

  Welcome home, my leadership friends. So why win-wins? There's a, ad by Nike that I'm gonna evaluate today and hopefully give you some aspirational things to think about. But welcome home. My leadership friends,

Nike once spent close to 20% of their ad revenue in a year on advertising. This was told to me while I was, , working for Nike, , and widening Kennedy, but the person who told me it, he used to work for Avia, so I'm not sure.

Exactly on those numbers every year, year to year. But that's $1 in $5 of revenue. That's a lot of money. , Across town at the time. Leatherman, I was told, spent a third of their revenue on patent infringement issues related to the, , leatherman tool. And so businesses make big decisions on what they're gonna spend on.

I personally, as a marketer, like the idea of spending a lot of money on the, marketing part of things and letting the patents fly, , a little bit. , Because I'm not an IP attorney, an IP attorney would disagree with me, I'm sure, I'm sure there's some balance there.

Anyway. They didn't spend the money because they like commercials, but because they understood something that most brands kind of miss. And, , as somebody who grew up around ad guys and advertising people, my father had a master's, or went to WSU for Masters in Advertising, was an advertising manager and one of his first jobs.

And then my uncle was partners with Duke Wyden, who was Dan Yen's. Dad of the famous Widen and Kennedy that came up with the Just Do it and, , including the ad that I'm gonna evaluate today. But anyway, so I've looked at these things and I've looked at where attention follows aspiration and aspiration converts.

So I'll do that one more time 'cause it's kind of cool. Attention follows aspiration and aspiration converts. It's not easy to go from, you know, Budweiser like image ads to actually converting for people to buy. 

drink DrinkWise and I respect the bud.

By the way, I may have all of this wrong, so. You may have a different idea for your product and what works for you and your image and your brand and alignment with your brand and how you want your values to show up. , And so what I could say, I'm sure my brother finds wrong quite often, but you know, to each his own, and that's one of the great things about being free in this free society that we live in.

Now I don't want to tread on any brand issues here. And, I don't understand the ins and outs exactly. Just looking from a professorial standpoint and as somebody who used to speak at American Marketing Association and places like that. , Like I said, I've had a lot of advertising backgrounds.

I've seen. Lots of ads before they run and evaluated lots of, and ads and focus groups and things like that. But today we're gonna talk about attention follows, aspiration and aspiration converts and the, so win Kaitlyn Clark adds, and today the percentage flexes year to year, but the philosophy hasn't changed.

Nike executives didn't just track, reach and recall.

I'm not sure they tracked it at all. To be honest. When I was a market researcher, I wanted them to track these things, but for the most part, I saw them using other people tracking things, and what they did was different. They had experts in the brand categories. And those experts actually ran things. It's a different model to segment by passion and emotion and connecting with the athlete at the athlete's level and treating everybody like they're an athlete.

So that we all wanted to wear those shoes like Mike. But one thing they definitely were looking at. Whether they measured it specifically in a market research standpoint or not, is they measured emotional ties and they talked about emotional ties, focus segments, and you know, innovative product. But because emotional attachment predicts long-term purchasing, better than any short-term metric.

So if you are a fifth grader and you get a cool pair of tennis shoes and you like the brand, you're gonna like that forever. So think about ads featuring Kate Lynn cart. 'cause they matter to the world of sports and marketing. This isn't just a commercial, it's a pattern that you can go back and look at that Nike has done for a long time.

Nike does three things simultaneously. Emotion first, confidence, courage, unapologetic, excellence. Product is always visible. The shoes, the headbands, the wearables, never competing brands with their brand. You see their brand, they're tying that emotion to their brand.

Aspirational identity. This is who you could be. It's awesome. This time of year, it's right before the New Year's resolution to get those Christmas Nikes or Christmas, Nike training products. So you can be all, you can be like you're in the army Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. It's Serena Williams. The list is endless of fantastic John McEnroe, like athletes.

Now, Caitlyn Clark. Each wasn't sold as perfect, and we know that athletes aren't perfect. They were sold as committed. Right, and athletes are committed. This is a danger, right? An athlete to win their category in the Olympics. According to Rick Burton, the former dean of the University of Oregon School of sports marketing program, , the Warsaw School of Sports Marketing.

He said that in a study they did that 70% of athletes, Olympic caliber type athletes would actually take something. Even if they would die in three years, if they could win their category. That's how committed athletes can be and one shouldn't be that committed to where they would die and hurt their family in that way.

But here's what's changed in society. We now live in what Gary Vanerchuk calls the attention economy, where people may not be Michael Jordan, but they can play Michael Jordan. As an athlete in a video game, they can dress like him. They can move like him in video games, social media, and in real life, and have an avatar that looks like him.

Aspiration has become interactive, and Kaitlyn Clark works because she has mass recognition and mass credibility. She's not. Just hype, right? She's performed at the college level and now at the professional level, and she's historical already one of the greatest women's basketball players of all time.

The way Erena William was in tennis,

and that kind of greatness draws eyes and advertise. Agencies love, draw eyes and major things by dry drying ice, that doesn't necessarily mean convert. And so I'm bringing the conversion into the, talk today, because you know, I've worked with a lot of award-winning advertising agencies that do the most creative, awesome things in an artistic way, but not in a business way where they actually convert.

When you're evaluating somebody and the ad agency says, Hey look, our ad won this award, you know, that's awesome and that's great that they're able to do that, and that may give your brand a little bit more. Punch and attention, but the Aflac duck is annoying, but it increased sales by a double digit percentage.

Think about that. Eyes turning into attention is one thing, then conversion, right? So attention turns into desire first though, and then desire in turn turns into purchases.

And this isn't accidental. You gotta focus on it.

Two Ivy League insights back this up. Harvard Business School

research shows that brands with strong emotional attachment create significantly higher lifetime customer value, meaning dollars in revenue than brands focused on functional features. So even though the functional features of the Air Jordans are great. That's not necessarily what sold 'em. And Wharton School of Business has found aspirational marketing.

When the ideal feels reachable rather than elite drives stronger motivation and follow through than fear base or status only messaging. So the emotional triggers I've talked about before in a previous podcast, but the big ones are the ties of trust. You trust that the brand's gonna deliver and. Pride.

So you have some pride in it. You know, it's like, it's cool that you, have the Michael Jordan brand. I have done lots of focus groups on what is cool. That's an elusive one. So it depends on the segment and it depends on the motion. It depends on who you think is cool. It depends on your values and all of those things.

Back to the Wharton my son played basketball with the. , CFO of Nike's son and he was a Wharton grad and I didn't know him. I sat by him one time watching a practice. He seems like a great guy, but how phenomenal do you have to be as a individual to be able to manage economics across 180 countries?

And, all of the different things that he did during a growth period, and for his clients, , were some of the hardest hitting business people in the world. It's not a small game and it's not a small thing. Just think of just the accounting that Nike has to do. I'm not saying I have it all figured out, but Nike doesn't say, you must be Caitlyn Clark.

That's the point that I wanna make. They say, you can move, you can compete, you can try. Right? And so that's the high road, right? Isn't it involving everybody that you can try. You can be like this, you can be an athlete, you have a body, you can do this. That idea isn't just business, it's ancient. And in ancient scripture, in Hebrews 12, one, let us run with perseverance.

The race marked out for us. So not for anybody else, right? You're not Caitlyn Clark. But not the fastest race. Your race. And I encourage you to do that. And in one Corinthians 9 24

run in such a way as to get the prize. So set those goals. The prize isn't just fame, price isn't just one thing. It can be discipline, growth, stewardship of the body. You're given stewardship of the gifts you're given. Nike's best ads like so win. They don't lower people, they elevate them.

They remind us that nearly everyone or anyone can be athletic in some way or another, and at least active and being physical is good for the mind for your leadership life. 'cause that's what I want you to think about. It's that getting that return on investment on your leadership. That's why this works.

That's why it sells, and that's why Aspiration Done Right is not just manipulation, it's motivation, it's leadership influence because the brands that win don't chase attention. They might like it if it's negative attention even, but then they earn it. So win. Bless your week and do it so you win. Like Mike or do whatever it takes to be a positive leader. Lead on now, as my father said, it will set you free. 

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