Rhetorical Analysis

      The above advertisement is an old Nike advertisement. It features former basketball player, Michael Jordan, in the air about to finish off a slam dunk. In the top right, it shows “Michael Jordan: 1, Isaac Newton: 0” this shows that Michael Jordan is basically defying gravity by being that high up in the air. Thus, this goes against Newton's law of universal gravitation.

      I think this is a great advertisement by Nike. They are advertising that if you buy their product, you can be like Michael Jordan and jump as high as he does. Because of this, I would have to say that Nike is trying to promote their sneaker products in this advertisement. I have bought plenty of Nike sneaker products throughout my lifetime, and they are a great product. But, they do not make you jump as high as Michael Jordan and be able to defy gravity as its shown. For people not familiar with Nike, they can look at this advertisement and maybe think that they can do that and it'll make them want to go out and buy that particular Nike product.

      To be “Like Mike” is something that pretty much every person familiar with basketball would want to do, including myself. Michael Jordan, to me, is the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. He has 6 championship rings, and put basketball as entertainment right on the map his entire career with his flashy dunks and amazing play on the court. I think Nike made a great decision in having Michael Jordan in this particular advertisement. If you're familiar with basketball in general, you can clearly understand the point its trying to get across to you. Even if you aren't familiar with basketball, almost everyone recognizes Michael Jordan and knows somewhat of his accomplishments as a player. It just shows how important of a sports figure he was throughout his career.

      The comparison of Michael Jordan to Isaac Newton is also well done in this advertisement. Not only do most people know about Michael Jordan, but they also know about Isaac Newton. Everyone knows about Newton's three laws of motion. It's just something that's known, mostly from being drilled into your mind while you were in school and it's just something you don't forget. As soon as I saw this advertisement, I knew the comparison that was being made of Michael Jordan defying Newton's law of gravity.

      Overall, I would say that Nike accomplished a lot in this advertisement, and did a great job doing so. They had good comparisons, the advertisement was short, and it got its point across with a visual and words beside it. If I had to guess, I'd say that this advertisement definitely helped them sell more products, especially sneakers.