Commercialized Game

An amazing picture, which is used in ads around the world

A haiku I wrote about soccer and it's commercialization. The competition between sportswear brands is humongous, and only the companies with the catchiest slogans manage to survive. Try and guess the three companies which use these three slogans, and the explication for the poem is below.

C'mon Just Do It,
Impossible is Nothing,
Football Equals Love,

The World Cup was a wonderful experience, uniting 32 nations to compete in South Africa. Yet so many times I get asked the question, "What were those orange shoes?", instead of something actually regarding the soccer which was played. Sadly, Nike managed to steal the scene again, releasing the silver/orange/purple soccer cleats right before the World Cup began, taking all the attention away from the tournament.

The three slogans which are in my haiku are catchy, motivational, and inspiring, exactly what a slogan needs to attract people. The first line has Nike's famous, "Just Do It" slogan, which was actually first used in a Nike business meeting, a chairman said it to his associates, and from that day on, it's been used over and over again. The second line is Adidas's "Impossible is Nothing", another motivational slogan which in my opinion doesn't have the same impact as Nike's. And the third line is Puma's, "Football Equals Love", and this line was always accompanied by smiling children playing soccer, associating Puma, with the love of the beautiful game.

All three are very good slogans, and my favorite has to be Nike's catchy, "Just Do It". But there's a bigger question that comes with these slogans, are companies using the sport, soccer, just to make money. The immediate answer would be yes, but if you dig deeper, there are plenty of programs set up by these companies to aid the less fortunate, and a great example of this would be Puma's Pink Project. The Pink Project fights against breast cancer, and has raised millions of dollars which go towards cancer research. What's your opinion? Are these companies good, or bad?