Two sports stars banter in a recent L.A. Gear commercial. From their level of discourse, you`d think they were toddlers playing at a gymboree. Akeem Olajuwon, the Houston Rockets powerhouse, says to Joe Montana, 49ers`
quarterback cum soda and underwear promoter, ”Joe, it`s a basketball shoe. I`m gonna wear it.” Joe says, ”No, it`s a cross-training shoe. I`m gonna wear it.”
Their performances are good-natured enough. But the spot is a muddle of numbing dialogue, meaningless action shots, and annoying, disconnected background sounds. Another spot in the series, starring Montana and Kareem Abdul-Jabar, the ex-Lakers center, is not much better. Abdul-Jabar delivers a setup line so obvious that it might make Ed McMahon wince: ”Joe,” he says gamely, ”do you do everything in those shoes?”
In less than five years, L.A. Gear has become the country`s third-largest marketer of athletic shoes. That success, however, has not come on the heels of innovative advertising. Rather, the ads have tended to define generic, using pre-packaged jokes, footage, music and logo, plus a plug-in celebrity.
But one spot in the new fall campaign is much better than the rest. That`s because last spring, the company signed a much-publicized deal with Michael Jackson. Now the llama king has his own shoe line. He also took control of his own commercial, and it shows.
The spot promotes a shoe called ”The Billie.” Originally, of course,
”Billie Jean” was Jackson`s hit single about a paternity suit that was later turned into a Pepsi jingle. Now, it`s the name of a studded, buckled, rubber sneaker.
Like Jackson himself, the shoe is a Disney cartoon version of something dangerous. The gloved one is no longer on the cutting edge of fashion, music, video or dance. But as he gets older, he seems to appeal to younger and younger children. The partnership makes sense in marketing shoes to kids worldwide: Jackson has moved from boy genius to ground-breaking superstar to international brand-name character.
The commercial has no words or music. Jackson appears in a black hat, on a dark, empty street. He starts dancing, in Fred Astaire-like moves, which are wonderful to watch.
He looks up to discover that he has an audience of one: A little girl sits in a window, applauding. We get a split-second glimpse of his face as he sees her and smiles.
The elements are not new. But watching this shadowy dancing figure is always interesting. He has stripped away all of the numbingly dull devices routinely loaded into other L.A. Gear commercials.
Given his facial renovation, in a previous column I called Jackson half-man, half-Bambi. With this studded, buckled sneaker, he`s achieved full-metal Bambi. It works.
