I was sitting in Boston’s South Station for an hour or so last week, and I found myself transfixed by Reebok’s new ad Run Easy campaign. Huge banners hung above the doors of the train station, bearing slogans that I found a little perplexing:
Run to the beat of your own drummer. Run Easy.
Conversation is fuel. Run Easy.
Enjoy the ride. Run Easy.
Why Hit the Wall? It hurts. Run Easy.
Why run till you can’t walk? Run Easy.
What are you Just Doing? Run Easy.
Congratulations. You can’t stand up. Run Easy.
A 10-minute mile is just as far as a 6-minute mile. Run Easy.
Did you beat your best time or just yourself? Run Easy.
There were a couple of Boston-specific banners:
Big Dig has set the pace. Run Easy Boston.
The British aren’t coming. The British aren’t coming. Run Easy Boston.
As I said, I was transfixed. Isn’t there a reason all sports-related marketing is aspirational? I can understand trying to subvert standard advertising tropes — those Sublymonal ads can be pretty funny — but this just goes beyond the pale. Sure, you don’t want to tell people that they’ll win the Boston Marathon if they buy your sneakers, but telling them that it’s okay to slack off?
In addition to these “Run Easy”s, each banner featured Reebok’s tagline beneath its logo: I Am What I Am. Now, I appreciate coming up with a slogan that puts us all in mind of the Torah and/or the greatest performance-enhancing-substance-abuser next to Barry Bonds, but in tandem with this campaign, it comes off as “Eh. Why bother? Running isn’t going to make me any better.”
I guess the Reebok banners were left over from the Boston Marathon which took place a couple of weeks earlier – I wonder if they’ll still be there when I’m in Beantown in June