Creator of "Mars Blackmon," "Bugs Bunny" and "Bo Knows" Campaigns Jim Riswold Comments on Nike's Advertising and Air Jordans

On Nike’s Advertising

Spike and Mike stuff was a big turning point for Nike advertising and this agency. I think that before then, all Nike spots were to show the athletes sweat and do their thing, and people drop their jaws and go, ‘Wow,’ which worked a lot, but we kept doing the same thing over and over again.

Mars Blackmon and Spike Lee

In 1986, Bill Davenport and I were in LA editing one of those spots, and we went to a terrible movie, and there was this trailer that happened before the movie of this man standing on a Brooklyn street corner selling tube socks, three for five dollars, and it was Spike, and he goes, ‘Hi, I’m Spike Lee, I’m a filmmaker, my first movie, She’s Gotta Have It, is coming out, it’s about yadda yadda yadda, hopefully you’ll go see it, and then I won’t have to sell tube socks, three for five dollars, anymore. But until then, tube socks, three for five dollars.

And I think that opened up the access point for Nike to not just necessarily be for serious athletes, but for anybody, for fans, because there’s no bigger fan than Mars Blackmon. I mean, not only did he love his Air Jordans, the product, he loved the man, so every year we’d usually do two spots, we did about 8 years’ worth of ‘em, and one spot was about Mars’ affection for Air Jordan the man, and the second spot was about his affection for Air Jordan the shoe.

So Davenport and I got back to Portland, and we went and saw it. The movie is about three men who pursue the same woman, and there was this Mars Blackmon character played by Spike, who when he has his chance to sleep with the woman of his dreams, he won’t take his Air Jordans off, and it was like, that’s an idea, that’s an advertising campaign.

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