Run Hard
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 at 02:17PM 
"The marketing paradigm of the past where elite performance speaks to consumers is not the reality anymore." -Uri Becker, Reebok
The Boston Marathon goes off every year at the end of April. This year, Reebok launched a new ad campaign during the Marathon, entitled “Run Easy”. They plastered the city with three nausea-inducing slogans: “A ten-minute mile is just as far as a six-minute mile”, “Why hit the wall?” and “Run at the speed of chat”, followed by the “Run Easy” tagline.
When I first saw these ads in print, I was overcome with a strange mix of anger and revulsion, followed by an insistent urge to vandalize every instance of the red, white, and blue graphic. Luckily, Samantha hangs around to keep my anti-social tendencies in check, and I was able to keep myself out of jail. By the end of June the ads were gone, and I’d moved on to ranting about hippies, bumper stickers, and the utter uselessness of anti-war protesters.
Last week, I opened up a sporting goods catalog to find the “Run Easy” ads once more, this time accompanied by photographs. The first showed Allen “The Answer” Iverson doing a “ten-minute mile” and looking bored out of his mind. The second ad showed an anonymous young woman, power-walking and talking on a cell phone, clearly “running at the speed of chat”.
The bile crept up in my throat. Here we’ve got a major athletic company, the same one that sponsors NFL running backs and multi-millionaire point guards, telling recreational athletes that it’s okay to suck. Not only that, but they use an actual athlete, one with phenomenal speed and a wicked jump shot, to reinforce the point. Ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you that Allen Iverson does not “Run Easy”. Furthermore, you’re not going to get the body of that nubile young vixen by talking on your cell phone and keeping one foot on the ground at all times.
It would be wrong of me to criticize Reebok for attempting to influence consumers. After all, I do it every day. Nonetheless, these asswipes went and spent thousands of dollars undoing what I spend every day of my life attempting to correct. Going long and slow is no way develop fitness, and encouraging folks to do so only propagates the myth that cardio melts fat.
Messages like “Why hit the wall?” and “Run at the speed of chat” give under-educated pseudo-athletes permission to do the least amount of work possible and still claim fitness, leaving them perplexed when a month of ten-minute miles ends with absolutely no change in body composition.
Odds are, you see right through the Reebok campaign. You are among the enlightened, one of the select few who knows that “running easy” is a surefire path to mediocrity. Unfortunately, there are now a whole bunch of well-intentioned consumers who think they’re going to get healthy slogging down Commonwealth Avenue at six miles per hour.
To Reebok Marketing Chief, Uli Becker: Today, I’m going to crank through “Helen”. I will not be “Running Easy”, I won’t be chatting with anyone, and when I “Hit the Wall”, I’m going to like it. If you stop selling things long enough to listen, you’ll realize that athletes want to be inspired, not validated.
Go faster!
Picture courtesy of blog.urbanstrata.com.
Reader Comments (3)
Now Madison Av is dumbing down exercise
God, you have to love Crossfit.
Good word Jon! I hadn't seen these ads and I think it's a shame what these ads signify. While everyone doesn't need or desire to pursue elite fitness, people need to be educated about what will stave off the decline of age and what will not. I almost thought progress was being made when several commercials (Under Armour sticks in my head) showed athletes doing clean and jerks. But those types of movements require *work* and these Reebok ads speak to the laziness that occupies most of our society. These ads work precisely because people want fitness without effort, two incompatible goals.
Keep up the good work
Scott
Modern Forager
Every time I need a hit of motivation, I return to this article. Great stuff Jon. Run hard man.
UltraTraining101