Nike loves to engage in ambush marketing, and for several years now it’s plastered ads across the cities where World Marathon Majors are being held and sponsored by a competing brand. But in its bid to steal the spotlight from Adidas ahead of the Boston Marathon Monday, a new tagline drew criticism and was taken down within a day.
A bright red window vinyl on Nike’s Boston store went viral Thursday with the text: “Runners Welcome. Walkers Tolerated.” By Thursday morning, the ad was removed — leaving a gaping opening in the multi-window display.
Amy Gougler, a run coach and personal trainer with nearly 16,000 followers on the platform, said in a reel: “We should building a more inclusive community, not isolating and belittling people that are a part of it. As a run-walk runner, this is offensive. I qualified for the Boston Marathon using the run-walk-run method: does that mean my marathon is worth any less or only just tolerated because I took walk breaks?”
Nike acknowledged its misstep in a statement on Friday afternoon. “We want more people to feel welcome in running — no matter their pace, experience or distance. During race week in Boston, we put up a series of signs to encourage runners. One of them missed the mark. We took it down, and we’ll use this moment to do better and continue showing up for all runners.”
Dr. Hussain Al-Zubaidi also posted the ad Thursday and followed up with a video Friday showing that it had been removed. He, too, was critical but raised the counterargument that it could be seen as a “highly targeted, even strategic” form of marketing because of the predominant way to participate is by running a highly difficult qualifying time.
Roughly 10 percent of the field in the Boston Marathon consists of runners who gained access through charities, but the rest are required to run another marathon at a high pace based on their age and gender. For this year’s race, for example, men were required to have a time of 2:55:00, an average pace of 6:40 per mile. But because more men did it than could be accepted, the qualifying time was further reduced by another 4 minutes and 36 seconds.
Many runners put the Boston Marathon on a pedestal, even above other majors, because of the difficulty of qualifying. This attitude can rise to the point of judging slower participants who gained access by other means, and debates kick back up each year on who “deserves” to take part.
Historically, Nike has vacillated in its messaging, living by co-founder Bill Bowerman’s mantra, “If you have a body, you’re an athlete,” but also running taglines such as, “Winning Isn’t for Everybody.” Whether intentional or not, it’s now put itself at the center of a debate at a time when the battle for running market dominance continues.
The development also comes at a particularly high-stakes moment for Nike, which has yet to see its transformation efforts take hold.
