Nike released an advertisement titled “The Last Game,” where a group of players in advanced sports gear made it “impossible” to win the world cup without the special clothing. The main characters are “The Originals,” a group of famous soccer players from around the world, who put on their regular Nike sports gear and take on “The Clones,” who have destroyed the game of soccer with their technical gear.
The point of the ad was to market Nike clothing as the gear that will always be original and successful no matter what development the sports clothing industry comes up with. The ending title says, “Risk Everything,” which is apparently what Nike was trying to do with this video. Many Israeli news blogs, including the Times of Israel, Arutz Sheva, and www.haaretz.com acknowledged the anti-Semitic symbols hidden within the commercial. Though very few United States media organizations reported the anti-semitism in the Nike ad, most Israeli news outlets had at least an article or a video about the advertisement. Considering 75% of the 8.2 million people living in Israel consider themselves Jewish Israelis, the media outburst is to be expected.
The Times of Israel claims that the while the hexagon featured on “The Clones” players could be a symbol for a soccer ball, due to the repeating pattern of the hexagon all over the ball, however from far away, the hexagon looks like the Star of David. Since the players on “The Clones” team are cast in an evil light, that also casts their symbol, a hexagon/star of David, in a bad light by association.
Relating back to Israel’s score on the Hofstede Cultural Dimensions scale, this outburst of media is to be expected from a cultural standpoint. Israel’ has a high uncertainty avoidance and low pragmatism score. The high uncertainty avoidance just means, “There is an emotional need for rules,” and that Israel is a highly expressive nation. The low pragmatism score means, “They exhibit great respect for traditions.”
If applying these principles to the Nike advertisement, it is easy to see why many Israelis were upset by the ad considering it broke the rules against anti-Semitism and disrespected their traditions and symbol.
Nike responded to the complaints many Israelis and other peoples around the world with the statement, “We respect all religions and the image was in no way designed to cause any offense.”
