words & image // Zack Schlemmer
This ad from Nike's minimalist "shoe and phone number" print ad series is probably the most blunt of all. It's like Nike is saying, "Our shoes are so great, we only need to show you the bottom". Or maybe only the outsole was shown for this shoe, the Zoom Alpha from 1996, because it was kind of a big deal: it was Nike's first Zoom Air running shoe. Nike had been using Tensile Air earlier, which would later be renamed Zoom Air, mostly in basketball shoes like the Air Go LWP and, of course, the Zoom Flight '95. But it was first utilized in a running shoe for the aptly named Zoom Alpha.
Like the whole idea of this ad series, I'll let the shoe do the rest of the talking for you. Enjoy!
