An Olympic Feeling for Everyone in Dick’s Ad

All through the run-up to the Olympics and the Games themselves we’ve been spotlighting the various ways brands have celebrated, and tied themselves to, this festival of sporting achievement. Today we’re spotlighting an entertaining and emotional ad from retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The ad uses a familiar format – a montage of home videos and ‘found footage’. It’s a way of making ads that immediately feels very charming, authentic and human, which is one of its big advantages in building emotion. Its downside, on the other hand, is that it can end up somewhat anonymous – it’s hard to get branding, let alone distinctive assets or Fluent Devices, into a home video montage, so there’s a risk of ads which use it being tricky to link to brands.

The video montage had its peak of popularity in the early 10s, during the rise of YouTube, but in an era of shortform social video we’ve seen several brands take it up again. It tends to work best with down-to-earth, everyday topics – holiday footage, videos of pets, or as in the Dick’s ad, footage of kids. In this case the kids are junior athletes, celebrating their first sporting milestones and creating lasting memories – from a young girl thrilled she’s made the team, to a toddler painstakingly walking the ball into a soccer goal to the delight of their parents.

The footage is extremely well chosen and edited, but the master stroke here is the choice of soundtrack. It may have been over 40 years since the movie Chariots Of Fire won its Oscars, but the instantly recognizable theme from the film was a meme before anyone knew the word, an immediate shorthand for sporting endeavor. It’s a lovely juxtaposition between the stirring theme and the adorable efforts made by the various kids, which really brings home the message that these tiny achievements feel like winning gold to the children involved.

The use of Chariots Of Fire is a great example of an ad using cultural references well. We know from Orlando Wood’s work in Lemon and Look Out how effective a cultural reference can be in capturing the attention of the right-brain and in boosting the overall effectiveness of the ad. Dick’s Sporting Goods’ work comes in at a terrific 5.7-Stars, one of the best non-holiday retail ads we’ve seen, predicting Exceptional market share gain given the appropriate investment.

The commercial doesn’t score so well in terms of short-term Spike and Brand Fluency – as we mentioned, montage ads can be difficult to brand well. But they’re a highly emotional format, and in the marathon that is long-term effectiveness, Dick’s prove how powerful a video montage ad can be.