Nike "What If' Commercial

[....]

Pretty good effects in the commercial. Nicely done.

[Chad]

There was a write up on it in the newest SI.

During the summer of 1990, Nike launched it's "Bo knows" campaign, in which everyone's favorite running back-outfielder dominated all sports, including, to the befuddlement of John McEnroe, tennis.  The Swoosh people have again successfully employed the moonlighting jock theme in their "What if?" spots.  The compaign features a series of "highlights" in which seven athletes master news sports: Andre Agassi, for instance, stars for the Red Sox, while Brian Urlacher and Mike Vick skate for the Avalanche.  The commercials worked so well because, for the most part, the atheletes trained rigorously in their new sports and really performed their feats, which were then transplanted by computer onto stock footage.  So that is Andre Agassi slapping a single up the middle--he just did it at an empty Dodger Stadium, not a packed Fenway Park.  A few spots, like Marion Jones's remarkable gymnastics vault, needed extensive enhancement.  Jones was digitally superimposed on the actual vaulter.  But in two cases--Serena Williams's volleyball foray and Randy Johnson's bowling duel with Pete Webber---the ads air exactly as they were shot, with no gimmicks.  Says Mike Byrne, of Wieden and Kennedy, the advertising agency that conceived the spots, "With every athlete, their natural competitive drive came out.

So as you can see, Nike isn't copying anyone's idea or "What if" motto.