Blue spoken by Sarah Introduction/Context

Purple spoken by John

Green spoken by Taylor

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the world, with over 24,000,000 people. Located on the Nanjing East Road, the largest shopping street in Shanghai and one of the busiest shopping streets in the world, lays Nikes premier flagship store. This store sells the highest volume of Nike merchandise in the world and is catered to the most upscale customers. As the leading sports brand in China, Nike continuously pushes the limits of innovation and growth. *Introducing the Nike Free Flyknit, a revolutionary second-skin fit* an analysis by John, Sara, Taylor To emphasize the innovative construction of Nikes new footwear, the marketing division of Nike China designed an inventive advertising campaign to capture the attention of the public; a live knitting performance across the giant billboard on their shanghai store. A time-lapse commercial documented the whole process. [Play video] Through the use of sound and imagery, Nike took a live audience captured appeal, and created a kickoff advertisement for their new shoe campaign. Sound The commercial begins with the ambient sound effect of a busy city intersection. The loud noises convey a busy, highly populated, metropolitan setting; in this case, the most active area in Shanghai. The sound commands high-density consumer exposure to the overcrowded streets and traffic. The use of sound to establish the setting creates an energetic atmosphere and a rushed, intense, restless mood which adds a sense of realism to the environment portrayed on-screen. The use of traffic sound also indicates the time of day the advertisement begins. Traffic is usually associated with morning rush-hour in large cities, the part of the day during which traffic congestion is at its highest. This further emphasizes the importance of the context of the ad; it takes place in a premier location with an open gateway to consumer publicity. As the ambient sound effect of a busy city intersection fades away, a melodic trance instrumental composition starts up. Melodic trance is a form of electronic music with a happy upbeat tempo and a noticeable melody, but perceives a calmer, more ethereal feel to the listener. The commercial was created through the use of time-lapse photography, a cinematography technique that manipulates time by speeding up a clip, allowing the audience to view a lengthy project in a matter of seconds. Because time-lapses take a process that normally appears subtle to the human eye and intensifies it to create a powerful artistic effect, a calm electronic style of music adds a surreal atmospheric feeling to the film. The lack of singing detracts attention from any lyrics, which emphasize the visuals shown on-screen.

Additionally, the music structures the film through the function of continuity by tying together the sequence of visual images that appear on-screen. Through the rhythmical 4/4 time pattern of the song, visual images transition on either the first down beat or third beat, the two strongest accents in a melody. By transitioning on the accents, the film creates a gentle, smooth visual effect for the audience; similarly to if the audience was watching the art performance live and in person. Another feature of trance music is the fading out of the melody, leaving behind the tracks rhythm. Since the melody is usually the most remembered part of a song, when it becomes reemphasized or fades back in, visual on-screen text appears in an attempt to capture the audiences attention. The audience tends to unconsciously connect the on-screen text with the melody of the song, allowing for the text and brand name to be remembered. It is important to note that sound only represents half of a story. Imagery and visuals represent that other half. Sound acts as a complement to visual images, emphasizing the importance of what is on screen. Imagery The advertisement begins by showing a plain, white billboard with an unknown persons foot printed onto it. Because it is difficult to clearly distinguish the gender of the foot, it allows the creators of the billboard advertisement to design a shoe that equally appeals to both genders by using non-gender specific shoe coloration; in this case, the advertisement is focused around the color green. The color green creates contrast with the white billboard background. Color contrast is used to draw attention to the shoe as the more easily visible color will appear more profound. The play off color is important as green is the most restful color for the human eye. Based on art and advertisement, green carries a symbolic meaning for growth, stability and endurance, and the promotion of green products. Growth is evolution and innovation, a representation of the new concept shoe; a strong, lightweight, yarn fabricated shoe that fits snug and comfortably like a sock. This can be seen by the on-screen text: Revolutionary second skin fit. Stability and endurance is seen through the shoes engineered strength. According to Nike, the lightweight shoe is incredibly strong as it was engineered to give tension and strength where its needed the most, also emphasized by on-screen text: Ultimate achievement in knitting technology. Also according to Nike, the strands of yarn drastically reduce waste and materials compared to traditional cut and sew methods, highlighting greens symbolism of nature. The color green also carries the meaning of go, implying movement or activity such as running which is the primary use of the shoe. Because green causes people to feel the emotions of happiness joy, they become intrigued as they are viewing the ad. As the advertisement progresses through the day, the audience sees how the lighting changes affect the look and feel of the ad. The ad opens in the early morning, with the sun just beginning to rise, symbolizing a new beginning or the start of something new, in this case, the kickoff to an advertising

campaign. As the day progresses, the lighting changes the appearance of the shoe. During midday, the neon green yarn texture begins to show its reflective appearance. Later at night when the artificial lights are turned on to light up the shoe, the textures true reflective appearance is shown. The neon glow brightly shines in contrast to the white background, causing the three dimensional image of the shoe to brightly stand out. This causes it to be much more noticeable to the audience. This effect also adds a selling point to the product, as it would appeal to customers that like to run at night and want high visibility footwear. The materials and reflection used represent comfortability during the day time and safety at night when activities become more dangerous. Through the use of sound and imagery Nike successfully produced an advertisement that caught the attention of Shanghai and kicked off their ad campaign. They accomplished this by the use of melodic trance that appropriately emphasized the key points of the ad. The limited text highlighted the main qualities of the shoe. The original artistic appeal through color and movement drew the audience in and showed them a realistic interpretation of the product that was easily visible throughout the day.

Works Cited "Color Wheel Pro - See Color Theory in Action." Color Wheel Pro: Color Meaning. QSX Software Group, n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2014. <http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html>. "Nanjing Road." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Mar. 2014. Web. 04 Mar. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Road#Nanjing_Road_East>. "Nike Flyknit. Nike.com." Nike Flyknit. Nike.com. Nike, n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2014. <http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/c/innovation/flyknit>. Pepper, Mark, Allen Brizee, and Elizabeth Angeli. "Welcome to the Purdue OWL." Purdue OWL. Purdue, n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2014. <https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/725/>. Sierra, Charlie. "Film Escape." Film Escape. Filmescape, 11 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 Mar. 2014. <http://filmescape.com/2010/09/11/what-is-background-ambient-sound/>.