Alexa Lefferts

COM 3311: Research Methods

Final Research Paper
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Introduction:

“Just do it” (Nike). When people hear this famous phrase immediately the brand Nike

appears in their heads, but what makes this catch phrase so memorable within this brand? How

does this specific company successfully advertise using different forms of rhetorical strategies?

The topic of advertisement is fascinating. Producers and consumers affected by advertisement

can be found everywhere in modern day society. It has the power to persuade people’s minds, to

manipulate people’s tastes, all through rhetorical writing and textual tools. These textual tools in

advertisement can include but aren’t limited to, persuasive writing, commercials, posters, social

media, and rhetorical imagery. Nike uses advertisement in this way, but shapes it to fit the

company’s motives like a mold. Research will provide my reader with a better understanding of

why Nike’s advertising is truly impactful.

Review of Literature:

My research is the study of what makes Nike’s advertisement persuasive. In order to answer

this research question, I had to study first how Nike’s advertisement effects people and what

techniques they use. Companies advertise to grasp an audience, implant ideas into people’s

minds, and sell a product or idea. I chose to study this topic based on the fact that knowledge on

advertisement is important to multiple communities. Producers of advertisement, consumers, and

the public all benefit from knowing the effect advertisement has on them and how companies use

specific tactics to persuade. I specifically chose the company Nike because Nike has an

enormous, ongoing effect in the marketing community. Nike takes the lead dramatically when it

comes to persuading a worldwide audience. Nike’s brand value lays at 27 billion U.S. dollars and

was considered the most valuable sports business brand worldwide in 2016 according to Forbes.
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A company able to persuade this large of an audience has power, a power we should all know

and learn about for success in any persuasive endeavor. Knowing how advertisement effects the

company, the consumers, and the overall public is not only interesting but important. Through

my research, I will prove exactly what makes the famous company Nike advertise so

persuasively.

Multiple studies in the department of textual tools in advertisement have been created in

order to give those interested in the topic a better understanding. These sources can be used both

as reference for future research, and awareness on the importance of how advertisement

persuades. In a descriptive scholarly journal entry written by Robyn Leboeuf and Joseph

Simmons, “attitude functions” within advertisement is discussed. They define attitude function

as how people react to the advertisement representing the company, as well as how products are

categorized, and brands are portrayed. Symbolic effect versus utilitarian effect, within different

products and brands, was tested on multiple subjects. The diverse groups of randomly selected

subjects were tested over a period of time in multiple research studies to guarantee more accurate

results. The study was conducted by giving the consumer two choices of products, one branded

and one not branded. The results concluded that branding made attitudes toward utilitarian

products more symbolic and attitudes toward symbolic products more utilitarian. Leboeuf and

Simmons state “one of the benefits of knowing an attitude’s function is that such knowledge

suggests how to change that attitude” (353). Advertisement is a vast world with many

components that aren’t always obvious to the naked eye. To successfully advertise efficiently to

a diverse group of consumers, companies must understand the detailed ideas featured in this

research paper. These ideas help companies understand what directly effects the consumer, for
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example the mentioned “attitude functions”. Brands, for example, Nike, use this valuable

information to shape their advertisement to the effect needed to persuade the most consumers.

In a more global view, David L. Andrews in the journal entry “Nike Nations” discusses

Nike’s more specific advertisement techniques and the globalization of popular companies. Nike

conducts worldwide capitalism through its interconnected communication of sports and

empowerment. Sports, inspiration, and power are a universal language that can be understood

through multiple cultures if presented correctly. Andrews also explores the ideas of other

companies global advertising techniques and stacks them against Nike. These companies all

share similar qualities in their persuasive advertising. To secure a successful global presence a

company must work with local practices and principles from around the world to create a

multicultural, diverse marketing strategy. When the company reaches this goal of advertisement

they achieve a worldwide range of consumers to persuade. Nike, as well as the sports nation in

general, is becoming an accomplice of capitalist globalization. Andrews’s piece could be used

for anyone interested in the study of capitalist globalization, specifically those in the topic of

sports industries. He uses critical analysis to explain the similar techniques most successful

advertisements follow. His piece has a main focus on Nike’s globalization, using specific ad

examples from the company such as, Nike’s Wayne Rooney advertisement. Through multiple

analyses on Nike’s advertisement the author proves that Nike masters the technique of appealing

to a wide audience of consumers and has become what is described as a “Nike Nation”. Nike is

successful in the ideology behind global and domestic advertisement. Both Leboeuf/Simmons

and Andrews research articles provide a better understanding of the vast world of advertisement

and the brand Nike.

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In a counter argument, Arsenault and Fawzy’s “Just buy it: Nike advertising aimed at

glamour readers: A critical feminist analysis.” presents questions in a critical feminist

approach. The researchers study follows Nike's advertising strategy in this specific Glamour

magazine ad and how it involves transforming traditional patriarchal ideas into images of

female authority that are socially acceptable to its intended consumers. They claim that Nike

does not display complete gender equality ideas in this specific ad. While this may be true for

the Glamour magazines ad, my further research mentioned above proves Nike is a globally

diverse company that includes all genders, races, and ages in an equal way through extremely

successful advertisement.

In summary, an accumulation of methods and tools is used to persuade people through

Nike’s advertisement. The community works hard to produce genres that work together and

follow Nike’s social facts to guarantee success in the community as well as to avoid members

rejecting the methods used. The famous community persuasively promotes its company

through multiple writing modalities and tools. Secondary research connects these ideas and

proves them to be correct, conquering examples of counter arguments. Nike flourishingly

emphasizes their community’s motivational beliefs to a wide group of consumers; defeating

demographic borders and reaching all types of people as proved through research.

Research Question and Hypotheses:

RQ: How does the specific company, Nike, successfully advertise using different forms of

rhetorical strategies?

H: Rhetorical writing and textual tools successfully help Nike advertise persuasively.

H₀: Rhetorical writing and textual tools do not help successfully Nike advertise persuasively.
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The boundaries of my research project include making sure a have a large, diverse group

of people to study, the fact that all my participants must have a knowledge on Nike, and that

my participants must be over eighteen years old. The diversity of my group is extremely

important to my research. I want to prove rhetorical techniques successfully help Nike

advertise persuasively to all consumers, not just a specific race or culture. With a wide range

of people being tested I can overcome this boundary. Also, all my participants must have

basic knowledge on Nike to be able to participate effectively. My last boundary is my

participants must all be adults. I will only collect data from adults only.

Variables:

Independent Variable: Nike’s forms of advertisement

Dependent Variable: Persuasiveness of the advertisements

Extraneous Variables:

Confounding Variable: A confounding variable in my research is people’s opinions on

Nike’s advertisement. This variable helps the independent variable connect to the

dependent variable.

Moderating Variable: Interest in Nike could be a moderating variable. Interest in the

company can affect the strength between my IV and DV.

Ethics:

A survey and interview will be created for my research. My sampling group will have to be

diverse in order to produce non-biased research results and also possibly build counter

arguments. Some ethical concerns that may arise during my study are getting enough participants

to properly assent to my research project and the possibility of working with a vulnerable
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population. My survey and interview will be very diverse therefore it will include some elderly

adults and employees from multiple businesses creating a vulnerable population in some of my

participants. Also, I need many people to join my research in order for it be successful, therefore

I will need many people to assent to the project.

Specifically, for my survey, I will be relying on anonymity. I will not know anything about

my participants besides the fact that they are above eight-teen. I will keep this anonymity by

creating a anonymous online survey and posting it to multiple social networks. My interviews

will be confidential by not including the names of my participants. However, I will list the range

of ages of my participants, as well as their ethnicity to demonstrate the diversity of my research.

I do not see any reason for concern of nonmaleficience in my research project. There is

nothing physical about my research. My participants will only have to answer questions that will

not be emotionally harming in any way. My research will be beneficence. It will get my ideas

across in a positive way and benefit people with the knowledge of why advertisement and its

effect on people is so important. Furthermore, I will be including every race and age of people,

except children, for my research. There should not be any issues of justice in this project.

Sampling:

The demographics of my population vary. In my primary research I plan to create a survey

and set of interviews. My anonymous online survey will be offered to a diverse group of people,

including nearly all demographics above the age of eighteen. My interviewees will feature 10

people including almost all races and a wide range of ages. My ten interviewees would include

five women and five men. Also, the ages would range from 19 to 79 years old to avoid a

vulnerable population. My research does not require specific characteristics, such as, beliefs and
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past experiences. However, I will be sampling people from different backgrounds and areas to

try to get a wider range of data.

I will use cluster sampling to collect some of my data. My clusters could be different age

ranges to make sure I am covering all of the population above the age of 18. My groups could be

18-25, 26-38, 39-50, 50-65, 66-75, and 76-90. I would take a random sample in each of these age

subsets, asking the same questions to each group.

A nonrandom sampling technique I will be using is volunteer sampling. To use this method,

I will be conducting interviews. I will ask multiple people, of different diversities, to volunteer

for this interview. I may use network sampling to gather participants for these interviews.

Facebook, Instagram, and twitter may all be used in the process of finding a large range of

people to select my sample from.

The best sampling methods for my topic would be simple random sampling and a

combination of volunteer sampling and network sampling. They fit the best with the plans I have

for my research project. I want to use simple random sampling to gather information from a large

group of people. Volunteer and network sampling will work together to conduct my interviews

and survey.

Experiments:

For my study I will be using the true experimental design of “Post-Test Only Control Group

Design”

Rationale: I chose this design outline because it will fit best with my experiment. I will be

testing the effects of specific genres of advertisement, directly related to Nike, on my

participants. I will randomly assign the groups to achieve a diverse, all-inclusive population. I
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want each group to be as equally diverse as possible. Furthermore, I find having a pretest

unimportant in this experiment. I am testing what the average consumer thinks of a specific ad. I

do not need to know their background, besides the fact that they are an everyday consumer.

Experimental Notation
Post-Test Only Control Group

R O1
R X O2
R O3

In studying Nikes rhetorical effect on the public, I will randomize my participants into

groups and assign each to a different genre of advertisement. One group will watch a Nike

commercial, the second group will view a Nike poster, and the last group will view Nike’s

official website. The commercial is two minutes and thirty seconds long, so the participants

viewing the poster and website will only be allowed to view them for that amount of time as

well. I will use a scale of 1 to 5. I will have my participants rate how persuaded they felt to either

buy or learn more about the company. I will then use this data to determine which genre of

advertisement is most effective and relate it back to my other research.

Survey:

Focusing on Nike’s genre set and utilizing my findings through secondary research a

survey will be created. The survey will be used to measure attitudes, retrospective

behavior, and a strong focus on market research. My sampling group will have to be diverse in

order to produce nonbiased research results and also possibly build counter arguments. I will be
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using a cross-sectional design for both the survey. This design will help me gather

the latest data on Nike’s advertisement effectiveness. The survey will be a short, anonymous

online poll to gather as much data as possible from multiple demographics.

In the anonymous online survey, a diverse group of people, including nearly all

demographics above the age of eighteen, will be asked simple questions with multiple choice

answers. I will create this online survey to find what the general public prefers when it comes to

Nike’s advertisement. Knowing the preferences of the people in this random survey will show

the exact method of advertisement that is most persuasive in Nike’s advertisement genre set and

will move my research closer to answering my main research question of what makes Nike’s

advertisement so persuasive in general. An example of a question in my survey is, “Which of the

following is the most persuasive genre of Nike’s advertisement methods?” They will then be

given the three general examples of Nike’s advertisement, commercials, posters, or the official

website to choose from.

*See Section A in Appendix for Survey

Content Analysis:

Along with experimentation and surveys, I will conduct a quantitative content analysis to

collect further data. I will be using electronic print material from scholarly sources for my

secondary research. For my primary research I will be using a commercial, posters, and Nike’s

website to represent Nike’s three main rhetorical strategies of advertisement. I will be measuring

the persuasiveness of Nike’s rhetorical strategies. To be more specific, I will be measuring how

Nike’s three main genres communicate in a persuasive tone to consumers of all diversities and

exactly how effective the brand is at doing so. I will be observing through surveys, interviews,

and content analysis of both Nike’s three rhetorical strategies and secondary scholarly research.
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In my research, I will discuss how Nike specifically uses three main genres to persuade the

audience. These include commercials, motivational posters featuring celebrities, and Nike’s

official website. Through content analysis, I will prove that Nike has a shared set of expectations

and context of the company’s rhetorical situation, which they meet continuously, and follows

either a textual or social interaction pattern in every genre they produce. These genres while

different in detail, carry out a similar theme. All three genres represent Nike in a positive,

inspiring way, while presenting products and branding in a subtle way. Nike promotes its

products and ideas through several genres working together as a genre set successfully and

proves its unity within the marketing sports community. I will use a coding sheet to define

important terms used to describe these genres and Nike’s message.

*See Section B in Appendix for Coding Sheet

Qualitative Data:

Additionally, to strengthen my qualitative data, I will be conducting a semi-structured

interview. I will conduct my interviews in an empty classroom at UCF. I want the setting to be

calm without distractions. I also want it to be in a public place, so my interviewees feel

comfortable. The results of this interview may be published. The participants demographic

identity, such as race, gender, or/and age may be published. However, my participants names

will remain completely confidential at all times. I will inform all my interviewees of these terms

before they agree to the interview. The door to the classroom will be closed so people passing the

room cannot listen in. No recording devices will be used besides my own hand-written notes.

Through interviews, as a researcher I will be able to gain deeper intellect on what persuades

the general public when it comes to advertisement. The community of Nike is a diverse group,

the company is worldwide, and its advertisements must appear to people across the globe.
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Therefore, my research will not be effective unless it covers a wide range of people. My ten

interviewees included five women and five men. The races included three White Americans,

three Hispanics, two African Americans, one Asian, and one half Native-American half White

American. Their ages ranged from 19 to 79 years old. I will ask each of my ten diverse

interviewees the same questions. Examples of some of the questions are, “What is the first thing

you think of when the brand Nike is mentioned?”, “How does Nike’s overall message make you

feel?”, and “In your opinion, why is Nike’s advertisement methods so persuasive?”

*See Section C in Appendix for Interview Protocol

Conclusion:

In summary, the famous community persuasively promotes its company through multiple

writing modalities and rhetorical tools. The three modes of persuasion, ethos, pathos, and logos,

can be seen throughout Nike’s advertisements genre examples. My content analysis and review

of literature and the results from experimentation, survey, and interview can further prove these

statements to be true. My research will work together to answer the research question of what

makes Nike’s advertisement persuasive. My preliminary research will help prove the importance

of this study and provided a textual background for further research I will conduct. Analysis of

the genre set Nike uses in advertisement, as well as my survey based on this set, will show

specific examples of how the company persuades a large audience using visual, rhetoric

methods. The interviews I will conduct will study the emotional effect Nike creates on its

consumers and overall, tie all this together through the answers from my participants. Together, I

hope to prove that Nike’s advertisement is indeed persuasive and that they use a specific, unique

set of techniques in order to complete this task.

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Appendix:

SECTION A: SURVEY

Nike’s Genres of Advertisement Survey Poll

Objective: To find what the general public prefers when it comes to Nike’s advertisement.

Knowing your preference in this random survey will help contribute to showing the exact

method of advertisement that is most persuasive in Nike’s advertisement genre set and will move

research closer to answering what makes Nike’s advertisement so persuasive in general.

Researcher: The data will be collected and analyzed by Alexa Lefferts, student at University of

Central Florida.

Participation: For this research, you are invited to answer this one question anonymous survey on

Nike’s advertisement through the website provided. Participation should take less than three

minutes. Participation is completely voluntary; no pay or credit will be given.

Thank you for your participation in this survey!

You must be at least 18 years old to answer.

Questions:

(1) Using your personal opinion and past experience, which of the following is the most

persuasive genre of Nike’s advertisement methods?

A. Nike’s Commercials

B. Nike’s Motivational Posters

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C. Nike’s Official Website

(2) Why do you think Nike is a successful brand?

A. Brand Value

B. Marketing

C. Prices

D. Quality of Product

E. Product Option Range

(3) In your opinion, what is Nike most known for?

A. Shoes

B. Sponsors

C. Clothing

D. Sports Equipment

E. Their Message

(4) What is the number one reason that has influenced you to buy Nike products in the past?

A. Brand Reputation
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B. A Specific Advertisement

C. Celebrity Endorsements

D. Peer Influence

E. I have not bought a Nike product in the past

(5) If you made a list, based off of your own opinion, of the top 100 most successful

companies in the United States, into what range would you place Nike?

A. Top 10

B. 11-25

C. 26-50

D. 51-75

E. 76-100

SECTION B: CODE SHEET

Code List:

1. Rhetoric- the art of effective or persuasive communication

2. Discourse- written or spoken communication

3. Discourse Communities- group that shares a set of discourses

4. Genre- a rhetorical concept that describes widely recognized types of discourse

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5. Theme- particular setting or ambience

6. Speech Acts- the idea that words have actions included in them

7. Social Facts- values, cultural norms, and social structures

SECTION C: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Nike’s Persuasive Effectiveness Interview

Objective: To gain deeper intellect, through a diverse group of participants, on what persuades

the general public when it comes to advertisement.

Researcher: The data will be collected and analyzed by Alexa Lefferts, student at University of

Central Florida.

Participation: For this research, you are personally invited to answer five research questions in a

name confidential, in-person interview on Nike’s advertisement and persuasion. Participation

should take less than fifteen minutes. Participation is completely voluntary, and no pay or credit

will be given.

Confidentiality: The results of this interview may be published. Your demographic identity, such

as race, gender, or/and age may be published. However, your name will remain completely

confidential at all times.

Thank you!
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Interview Questions:

“What is the first thing you think of when the brand Nike is mentioned?”

Possible follow up question: “Do you believe there is a reason behind your thoughts on that?”

“In the past year, has an advertisement from Nike persuaded you to either want a product or

believe an idea from the company?”

Follow Up: “Can you please list some of these specific advertisements?”

Follow Up: “What was the product you wanted/bought or the idea you believed in that the

advertisement presented?”

“On a scale of 1-5, 5 being the most persuasive and 1 being not persuasive at all, how would you

mark Nike’s persuasion compared to other sports brands?”

Follow Up: “What is your reasoning behind choosing that number on the scale?”

“Do you believe Nike stands out to society more than other sports companies?”

Follow Up: “If so why?”

“In your opinion, why is Nike’s advertisement methods persuasive?”

“How does Nike’s overall message of unity and empowerment within the sports community

make you feel?”

“Thank you so much for participating in my research.”

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References:

Andrews, D. L. (2008). Nike Nations. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 14(2), 41-53.

Retrieved August 26, 2017.

Arsenault, D. J., & Fawzy, T. (2001). Just buy it: Nike advertising aimed at glamour readers: A

critical feminist analysis. Tamara : Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science, 1(2),

63-76. Retrieved from https://login.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-

com.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/docview/204441773?accountid=10003

Leboeuf, R. A., & Simmons, J. P. (2010). Branding Alters Attitude Functions and Reduces the

Advantage of Function-Matching Persuasive Appeals. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(2),

348-360. doi:10.1509/jmkr.47.2.348

Nike. © (2016) Nike, Inc. “Just Do It”. http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/.