Nike ad: If You Let Me Play (1995)

Nike ad from 1995. Agency:
Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Oregon.

• Category

  Sports

[dylang88]

i wonder if they let the orphans who make their sneakers play...

[Ross Knights]

You assume the "you" they are addressing is all male. Couldn't it be women too? Mothers, teachers, women in positions of power?

[Barbara Saunders]

@butterflybaby04 For me, that's the brilliance of the ad. The emotional edge. It's not just men they're asking. It's their mothers and teachers and other women who would impose "ladylike" behavior on tomboys. It's also for all of those people who no longer understand the value of sports - for boys AND girls - and would have kids sitting in chairs doing academics, health - and oxygen flow to the brain - be damned.

[sarahg5001]

I watch this and cry...

[sarahg5001]

the first time i watched it was on oprah show, and i cried beacuse my parent made me quit sport...for the sake of my study

:((((((.....

[world0fmyown]

My mom told me to stop running because my legs are getting too muscular. I stopped. But you know what? This morning I decided to run anyways. No one said we couldn't play sports, they just shove their opinions down our throat. We don't have to take it. Female, male, handicapped, short, tall, ill, depressed, happy, rude, smart, dumb whatever. It shouldn't matter.

Just go out and do what you want to do, no matter what people say.

[paulthewolf]

The guys who voted against allowing women ski jumpers in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics need to see this ad.

[Me4475]

Now ask Nike about its glass ceiling and male to female wage gap. "If you let me play," indeed!

[Me4475]

Yeah!!! Now ask NIKE how many of its mid- to high-level managers are women. Ask Nike about their glass ceiling! Ask Nike about their male to female pay gap. "If you let me play", my ass!!!!

[justinlowe]

I always took it as daughters addressing parents (both male and female)

[obscureluzername]

Indeed it could and often is women who dictate what activities their girls take part in. Forbidding girls to play sports just perpetuates the archaic notion that mental and physical strength are strictly the domain of boys and men.

Oh and um...GIRLS RULE!