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Aging Baby Boomers Influence Nike, Others

Nike has launched a new ad campaign focusing on “real” women - one that celebrates big butts, thunder thighs, and “shoulders that aren’t dainty,” according to AdAge. The campaign follows in the wake of a series of Dove ads featuring women from sizes six through 12 that have spawned a flood of criticism and kudos.

 

As Baby Boomers, still the nation’s most powerful demographic, began to reach the age of 35 and beyond in the 90s, “They’ve gotten closer to the age where now they know what America really looks like,” said Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute. But whether women want to see ads based on what they really look like or what they could, potentially, look like is unclear. “Do you advertise for desire, or do you advertise toward reality?” Celente asked.

Linda Wells, editor of Allure, claimed that women have changed in the way they view themselves. In a recent study of 1,000 women, the words they used most often to describe their looks were, “natural and real. Those words were used far more than beautiful and pretty and even higher than sexy and glamorous. That’s a shift.”

The Nike campaign will drive women to NikeWomen.com. There are no TV spots for this campaign.