Nike slogan 'Here I Am' for Europe's Women

Nike has been marketing its "Just do it" slogan since 1988. In Europe, it is trying out a new, softer catchphrase on young women: "Here I am."

The sportswear titan recently launched a new ad campaign in Europe aimed at selling more clothing to university-aged women.

Made by the Amsterdam office of the independent Wieden + Kennedy agency, the campaign includes five short animated cartoons about the life stories of five top European female athletes.

To appeal to them, the agency's copywriters decided they needed a different slogan from the "Just do it" message, says Mark Bernath, a creative director for Nike at Wieden + Kennedy. "Here I am" promotes the personal benefit of exercise without being aggressive, he says.

"We want to make sure normal women can relate to it," he says. Nike executives liked the slogan because they thought it would be understood in English across Europe. (Though in parts of Italy it is being translated into Italian.) The company also wanted a slogan that wouldn't sound odd alongside "Just do it." "When you are dealing with a pan-European business, you need a degree of simplicity and openness," says Charlie Brooks, a Nike spokesman.


In the U.S., Nike doesn't have a slogan aimed at women. That is because advertising for Nike's women's line in the U.S. is handled by different Wieden + Kennedy offices. There aren't any plans to use the European campaign in the U.S., Ms. Findlay says.

In recent years, the agency, based in Portland, Ore., has been one of the hottest in the ad world, winning big clients such Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, and leading an industry trend for big marketers to hire small "hot shop" agencies to produce innovative ads. Nike is one of the agency's oldest accounts, and Nike Chairman Philip H. Knight and agency co-founder Dan Wieden have a close relationship.