Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

Just do it

I don’t think there’s many of you who don’t know which company’s tagline this is. Sports apparel brand Nike’s identity is now so inextricably linked to its tagline that it is difficult to imagine one without the other. 

And this year, Nike turns 50. 

Here’s an excerpt from a piece that The New York Times published earlier this week:

The success that Nike, the brand, has had has a lot to do with the story at its foundation. (I know seasoned readers of this newsletter won’t be surprised by that. But if you’re new, Inciting Incident is all about decoding the stories and narratives driving the world of business. You can read about why it’s called what it’s called and the story behind it here.)

Over the course of the last 50 years, Nike has told a powerful story. And, its latest campaign tries another age-old but evergreen storytelling technique.

This edition is about what makes it tick.

Nike’s new campaign unveils the promised land

I know you think you’ve seen everything, but you ain’t seen nothing yet

Those are words that appear in, and essentially encapsulate the message of, a video that Nike released to mark its 50th year. And it comes right at the end, spoken by a teenage girl playing chess with an old man on a park bench. An old man that has spent the first half telling her that he has, basically, seen everything important that has happened over half a century of sports.