In advance of Tiger Woods' return to competitive golf today at The Masters (cue the piano music and Jim Nantz' Svengali-like voice), Nike debuted a high-friction Preempt play to keep Nike's (and Tiger's) detractors on the defense.  In it, Tiger's late-father, Earl, is heard in an old home video asking his son if he's "learned anything."  Tiger, for his part, stares blankly into the camera, never saying a word.

Not a company to shy away from controversy, Nike understands the concept of friction (and the Preempts that sometimes accompany them) perhaps better than any consumer products company bar Apple (see The Elements of Influence, pp. 287-289).

To review, the idea of “friction” is a playmaker’s term that describes the notion of a concept, idea, or product as being controversial, dissonant, or sure to get people talking (e.g, Apple CEO Steve Jobs railing against the IBM PC in the 1980s, or Nike using Charles Barkley to be the anti-role model). Its twin, “fit” describes an idea or concept as agreeable (e.g., IBM’s Smarter Planet branding campaign).

So what’s Nike’s strategy? Why put Tiger in your face with such obvious allusions to his transgressions?

Because the cat’s already out of the bag. And Nike’s thought process is this: Rather than receive further criticism for being Tiger’s biggest sponsor to stand steadfast behind him, it’s chose to rub your face in it. That is to say, Nike’s giving a huge middle-finger to its (and Tiger’s) detractors and announcing boldly, and Preemptively, “This is our guy. Don’t mess with him.”

Predictably, this commercial is bound to generate buzz (and on some level, it’s probably a low-level Peacock). But make no mistake, Nike’s Preempt let’s everyone know where it stands—and that it stands for something.

Say what you will, but most companies’ greatest problem is that they don’t stand for anything, (i.e., there’s neither fit nor friction). Nike surely doesn’t have that problem.  And it's happy to run Preempts to prove it.

Posted by: John Koval