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Daniel Alejandre

English 103

Professor Granillo

30 May 2019

Abstract

Overall my multimodal project centers around the Nike “Dream Crazy” ad. My own

analysis on the ad centers around the Marxist critical lense and aspects of Marxism such as

repressive ideologies, false consciousness and commodity fetishment. Through my use of these

aspects of marxism I develop a thesis that implies that Nike’s ad attempts to trick people into

buying things under its brand by pushing a story of empowerment and social justice when in

reality it’s main goal is to sell clothing. By using these ways of convincing the consumer to buy

their product nike is actually tricking them into buying their product because they sell them an

idea rather than the actual product itself. In the advertisement it never talks about the

effectiveness of the clothing or how reliable it is but rather it employs big name celebrity athletes

to push a message of empowerment but it’s all a facade to hide that the ad is a ploy designed to

sell Nike products.

The advertisement itself is narrated by Colin Kaepernick, a controversial former

quarterback who lost his job because he would kneel during the National Anthem at football

games in order to make a stand against police brutality. A lot of people didn’t like this and found

it disrespectful, while others believed he was doing a righteous act. Nonetheless, Kaepernick's

actions didn't sit right with the owners of the 49ers franchise and they fired him and ever since

then no other NFL team has wanted to sign him either. Nike employed Kaepernick to narrate the
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ad which shows a compilation of athletes overcoming adversity in their lives and careers to

ultimately promote the message that a person should “dream crazy” and follow their dreams no

matter what it may cost.

Nikes uses the controversy behind Kaepernick to make it seem as if they are taking a

stand alongside him in the fight against police brutality but in reality they just hired him for the

exposure. Nike also pushed a message of empowerment through the imagery and phrases

Kaepernick says over those images. Ultimately the ad tries to correlate those concepts of social

justice and empowerment to an inanimate object to further sales. In reality, the ad is just a ploy to

get people to buy Nike.