Marvin Gaye and Basketball

October 5th, 2008 | Posted in: advertising

I stumbled into this Nike basketball ad, which struck a chord with me. I assume this one was just available online, simply because of the length of it. But hey, who needs TV anyway?

I am not a great basketball fan, but it must be Marvin Gaye’s voice which wins me over. I’ve never heard anyone sing Star Spangled Banner whith so much soul and passion before (might be because I live in Amsterdam).

This as was made in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. The coach of the US basketball team used this version of the national anthem to inspire his team. He played this version of the song before a training session. Nike learned of this, and made it into a commercial using actual training footage.

Marvin Gaye sang this version of the national anthem in 1983, at an NBA All Stars game.

I dont know how they do it, but Nike seems to have mastered catching emotion in many of their ads.