August 19, 2008 11:56 AM
Ad Watch: Feel Liu Xiang's Pain
Less than 24 hours after Liu Xiang decided not to run in the 110m hurdles, Nike's already trying to spin the situation.CNBC's Darren Rovell is reporting that Nike's new ad campaign will center around a print ad with this text (translated from Mandarin):
Love competition.
Love risking your pride.
Love winning it back.
Love giving it everything you've got.
Love the glory. Love the pain.
Love sport even when it breaks your heart.
Just Do It.
Sure enough, the ad's already in today's papers. The image above is taken from the Beijing Youth Daily, a Chinese-language newspaper.
Two more thoughts about Liu Xiang:
To understand how much has changed since Athens, check out this article from China Daily on Aug. 28, 2004. It's titled "Brave Liu Xiang did it! Chinese fans jubilant":
Liu Xiang did it in Athens,and history's been made.
The 21-year-old claimed the gold medal of the glamorous men's 110m hurldes before a capacity crowd of 70,000 at the Olympic Stadium in the 28th Olympic Games in Athens late Friday local time.
He clocked a stunning 12.91 seconds to equal the world record set by Britain's Collin Jackson in 1993.
Chinese fans in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai burst into hysteria and many cried out when the national television station CCTV broadcast the event live, when brave Liu Xiang dashed to the line in arms and legs far ahead of his rivals, in the early hours Saturday morning Beijing time.
With that in mind, I'd like to add something to what I wrote yesterday, when I tried to equate Liu Xiang and LeBron James. Generally speaking, they're on quite different levels. Liu Xiang was China's first track & field gold medalist. He's a national hero. Aside from Yao Ming, he's likely the second most important athlete in the country.
James can't measure up to that. But in terms of visability and marketability, I think they've comparable.
Heck, the Nike store even sells Liu Xiang jerseys here. I never thought I'd see anything like that.
August 19, 2008
6:05 PM
PK Tam writes:
"(translated from Mandarin):"
You made a common non-Chinese-speaker mistake.
The correct statement should be "(translated from Chinese):"
Madarin is the spoken dialect of Beijing.
Don't fret, Coca-Cola made the same mistake on their tie-in ad with the Beijing Olympics, and it's on all their cans in Canada and in both English and French:
"可口可乐
In Mandarin, Coca-Cola means Delicious, Happiness
En mandarin, Coca-Cola signifie délicieux bonheur"
August 19, 2008
8:49 PM
Daniel Oshinsky writes:
Much obliged for the clarification on that.