Selective Amnesia

Free running, advertising and memes in the mind

Two videos, first.

(keep a special watch out for his antics after 2:48 minutes into the movie)

I first heard of Free Running, I think, about…um…3 years ago, when Discovery/NGC made a feature on the Parisian Free Runners. It was only natural, then, for advertising agencies and sports brands to take it up and spread it further. Nike just did it.
Wieden + Kennedy’s ‘Angry Chicken’ Nike commercial

4 years after Nike did it, Indian agencies jumped on to the Free Running platform. With Parachute and Thums Up debuting almost simultaneously with their version of Free Running. Thums Up is the better of the two, imo, because we all know Akshay Kumar is a crazy fucking athlete. And poor Yuvaraj is just so much celebrity meat in his ad.

And oh, dear old O&M came on to the scene with Free Biking.

So, what the fuck is all this, you ask? Why, nothing. Just wondering aloud if it’s..um..copied ideas..or memes in the mind.

Speaking of which, dear makers of deodorants (That means you, Zatak and you, Wild Stone) – would you please come up with a new idea or shut the fuck up? Getting the women horny has been an Axe/Lynx property for a long, long time.

P.S: Searching for the Thums-up video, I saw that Nimish Batra has already covered it. Hmmm… Do we both share the same meme? Fuck!

advertising | branding | free running | memes | nike | thums up