Nike's "Just Do It" Slogan Was Inspired By The Last Words Of A Murderer Before He Was Executed By Firing Squad

Dezeen – The advertising executive behind Nike’s “Just do it” slogan has told Dezeen how he based one of the world’s most recognisable taglines on the words of a convict facing a firing squad (+ interview). Dan Wieden, co-founder of advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, described the surprising genesis of the slogan in an interview at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town last month. “I was recalling a man in Portland,” Wieden told Dezeen, remembering how in 1988 he was struggling to come up with a line that would tie together a number of different TV commercials the fledgling agency had created for the sportswear brand. “He grew up in Portland, and ran around doing criminal acts in the country, and was in Utah where he murdered a man and a woman, and was sent to jail and put before a firing squad.” Wieden continued: “They asked him if he had any final thoughts and he said: ‘Let’s do it’. I didn’t like ‘Let’s do it’ so I just changed it to ‘Just do it’.” The murderer was Gary Gilmore, who had grown up in Portland, Oregan – the city that is home to both Nike and Wieden+Kennedy. In 1976 Gilmore robbed and murdered two men in Utah and was executed by firing squad the following year (by some accounts Gilmore actually said “Let’s do this” just before he was shot).  Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who was sceptical about the need for advertising, initially rejected the idea. “Phil Knight said, ‘We don’t need that shit’,” Wieden said. “I said ‘Just trust me on this one.’ So they trusted me and it went big pretty quickly.” The slogan, together with Nike’s “Swoosh” logo, helped propel the sportswear brand into a global giant, overtaking then-rival Reebok, and is still in use almost three decades after it was coined. Campaign magazine described it as “arguably the best tagline of the 20th century,” saying it “cut across age and class barriers, linked Nike with success – and made consumers believe they could be successful too just by wearing its products.”

Well would you look at that. The inspiration behind the most inspirational slogan ever was from a double murderer. Launched a bazillion dollar empire, Thank God that man and woman were killed, right! I mean who knows what happens then. No murder means no Just Do It means no Nike dominance means maybe Michael Jordan never takes off the way he did. Who knows maybe we’d all be walking around in Reeboks like a bunch of suckers talking about how Sam Bowie is the greatest of all time. I’d gladly sacrifice a couple people knowing that it lead to some of the greatest sneakers and commercials and sports moments of all time.

Also little known fact is that Burger King’s “Have it your way” was inspired by a BK exec who fucked a Tallahassee hooker the night before a big advertising meeting. He was negotiating a rate and threw down 100 bucks cash and the hooker turned around, bent over, and said “Have it your way.” Later that day he was eating a Whopper and thinking about that prostitute and it dawned on him that a cheap product exactly how you want it is the key to success. The rest was history.

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PS – My biggest take away is that in 1977 Utah was still doing death by firing squad. I thought that stopped after like Reconstruction. Thats some old school, carnage shit right there.