Popular advertisements go to great lengths to mystify the general public and leave them spellbound by transforming their products into spectacles; the Adbusters take these advertisements and reveal the ugly truth behind the glamor. Looking through the various spoof ads displayed on their website, some of them mocking my least favorite corporate monsters, I settled on their Just Douche It ad, a play on words of Nike's Just Do It ad campaign. The message behind the Just Do It ad campaign, was for aspiring athletes, amateur or otherwise, to forget about the little things holding them back from “playing the game” or achieving their goals, and to literally, just do it. Giving the campaign its due, it happens to be very inspirational. The Adbusters' Just Douche It spoof ad is not a mockery of Nike's campaign, it is actually a social commentary on a negative social phenomenon: douchebags.
For those of you unfamiliar with the slang term, allow me to elaborate. A “douchebag” is an ignorant, arrogant, inconsiderate, obnoxious, self-centered individual with an immature personality and poor social etiquette; that is putting it politely. The ad is making an observation, that many individuals who buy and utilize Nike products, are not actually athletes; instead they use the products to feign athleticism, in order to draw positive attention to themselves.
The Adbusters' ad and Nike's original ad provide an ironic contrast of messages. While Nike's ad encourages strength in character, the Adbusters' ad promotes lack of character. Instead of recognizing Nike as a symbol for building self confidence and strong ethics (and I say that with a straight face), people associate Nike with egocentrism, ignorance, and unsociable behavior. The social critique the Adbusters are making, is that inspirational images lose their positive meaning in the public sphere, because of unfavorable influences, many of which are actually caused by the people. It illustrates how expression and symbolism in advertising can be internally modified by consumers.
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