Nike, Pace Shamed, Removes Ad and Hits Rock Bottom

Nike removed this ad after uproar over “pace shaming” lol. Let me explain why this is so uniquely ironic.

Nike began in running. Phil Knight’s Blue Ribbon Sports was an importer of Onitsuka running shoes from Japan. In the early 1960s, running as exercise was a small niche sport. There were really only two running shoe companies in existence, Onitsuka and Adidas. Knight was more or less responsible for seeding the category in the US.

It started making its own shoes as Nike in 1971, and line go way up for the next half century as personal exercise became a central part of American life. It wasn’t until Michael Jordan took a huge chance on Nike’s fledgling basketball division that they became known as a household brand.

Right around this exact same time, the late 1980s, Nike launched their “Just Do It” campaign, arguably the greatest ad campaign of all time. The first ad featured marathon runner Walt Stack. It was about the mentality of an elite athlete: never allowing doubt or tiredness t…