WOW!! Has anyone else seen the new Nike Y2K ad? This is too good to be true. Certainly the powers-that-be will pull it! The scene? Jogger goes out for his morning run. Total pandamonium in the streets on Jan 1 -- tanks rolling in, looting, ATMs falling apart, giraffe running in the street! The tag line? Just Do It.

Saw it on the Comedy Channel -- anyone else see it?

-- Meg Moss (meg@Y2k.am), November 10, 1999

Answers

Here's the press release on it: http://www.nikebiz.com/media/n_y2k.shtml

BEAVERTON, Ore. (Nov. 8, 1999) - Y2K: Ready or not, here it comes. Will it be a disaster of cataclysmic proportions? Or will it be the biggest hoax since they fricasseed Chicken Little after that unfortunate 'sky is falling' incident? In less than 60 days - one way or the other - we will all find out together.

But why wait that long? Starting Tuesday, Nov. 9, television viewers get a chance to see how the 'morning after' could unfold in a new Nike ad directed by Spike Jonze, imaginatively titled: 'Morning After.'

In the 60-second spot, created by longtime Nike ad agency Wieden & Kennedy, a young man wakes up on New Year's Day and goes out for a morning run. Singular of purpose, the runner is oblivious to the city around him as malfunctions and mayhem proliferate

And then there is that giraffe.

"The attention heaped on the whole Y2K 'disaster' has reached such a ridiculous height that it was just begging to be lampooned," explained Mike Wilskey, vice president of Nike US Marketing. "So we created an ad where every dire prediction turns out to be 100% accurate. Meanwhile, amid a world that appears to be splitting apart at the seams, a runner remains focused on his daily workout routine."

It's the first ad that Jonze has directed for Nike since the popular 1995 "Guerilla Tennis" that featured Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, in which the two tennis greats stage an impromptu singles match on a street in the middle of downtown. After directing a number of popular music videos, Jonze made his feature-length movie directorial debut in October with 'Being John Malkovich.'

On Oct. 12, Nike released "Beautiful," a black-and-white ad that pays homage to athletes who have suffered disfiguring injuries only to come back to compete. A week later, "Good Ol' Boys" debuted, showcasing the unusual coincidence that two top professional athletes, Jason Williams of the NBA's Sacramento Kings, and Randy Moss of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings, were teammates since the fourth grade in a small West Virginia town.

Despite the seemingly disparate themes of these three most recent Nike ads, they all share a common element: 'Just do it'.

"That is the beauty and the power of the 'Just do it' message," Wilskey said. "It is highly motivational, yet extremely personal because it can mean something different to just about every athlete."

Nike Inc., headquartered in Beaverton, Ore., markets its products in more than 100 countries and is the world's leading sports and fitness company. Further information about Nike can be obtained at www.nike.com and www.nikebiz.com.

-- meg moss (meg@y2k.am), November 10, 1999.

Meg,

I especially liked the nuke flying around out of control. This ad will win tons of awards...it is excellent. I saw it last night and laughed out loud. The visuals are movie quality and if Nike can create such a moving picture of what the dawn of 2000 might be like surely the news media can as well.

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), November 10, 1999.

NIKE......Doomer commercial

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 10, 1999.

Its just too bad the programmers designing flashy effects to sell sneakers couldn't have been put to use repairing the most important computer problem of the digital age.

Pretty ironic.

-- a (a@a.a), November 10, 1999.

Well here is a snip from their 10 - Q forms. Maybe they see something that others don't

 Yahoo! Finance - NKE form 10-K

We have assessed the Year 2000 readiness of 469 of our suppliers, 163 of which we consider to be significant suppliers. We have also assessed the Year 2000 readiness of 151 customers, 59 of which we consider to be significant customers. We have relationships with significant suppliers and customers in most of the locations in which we operate. The level of preparedness of our significant suppliers and customers varies greatly from operation to operation and country to country. NIKE relies on suppliers to timely deliver a broad range of goods and services worldwide, including raw materials, footwear, apparel, accessories, equipment, advertising, transportation services, banking services, telecommunications and utilities. Moreover, our suppliers rely on countless other suppliers, over which we may have little or no influence regarding Year 2000 compliance.

We have sent surveys to all of our significant suppliers and customers to determine the extent to which we may be affected by those third parties' Y2K preparedness plans. A substantial majority of our significant suppliers and customers have not responded to our surveys, have not provided assurance of their Year 2000 readiness, or have not responded with sufficient detail for us to determine their Year 2000 readiness. In the absence of adequate responses, we are making independent assessments of our significant suppliers and customers and the countries in which they operate.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), November 10, 1999.

Haven't seen it yet, but sounds coooool! Was hoping they'd put the video on the net, but all I found was a few stills:

clips from Nike ad

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), November 10, 1999.

Save the giraffes!

-- (littleoldlady@in.nikes), November 10, 1999.

Best thing that could happen at this late stage. We WANT Joe Blow to be laughing at the silly doomers, because it's way way too late for him to prepare now. Let's petition NBC to turn their Y2K film into a musical comedy. ;)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 11, 1999.