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Timeless Ideas
A runner in a yellow shirt on a long tree-lined road above Nike’s There Is No Finish Line headline and body copy.

There Is No Finish Line — 1977 campaign.John Brown & Partners; photograph: Bob Peterson / Nike

There Is No Finish Line

Brand:
Nike
Agency:
John Brown & Partners
1977Classic PrintPrint advertisement

Timeless principle

Find the belief your product and its users can honestly share.

The idea

Make the private experience of running the reason to believe in a running brand.

Why it works

The runner occupies a tiny part of the picture, but the road seems to go on forever. That scale makes the headline feel physically true before the body copy develops the thought. The language then connects the runner’s continuing effort to Nike’s own commitment to improving its shoes. Product and person share a standard. The ad gives a specialist audience the pleasure of recognition, while the open-ended idea has enough reach to mean something beyond the sport.

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Gallery

  • Magazine-page reproduction, catalogued as 1977.
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