"This team wins, everyone wins" A critical analysis of femvertising techniques and mediated discourses in Nike advertisements featuring the US Women’s National Soccer Team during World Cup year 2019

Abstract: Nike has long been considered in the sports and advertising world as being a “champion” for women’s empowerment. Since their shift towards female-centred marketing for their sub-brand in 1987, Nike has been at the forefront of women-specific sports products and advertising, and has received many accolades for their female-centred advertising messages (Flynn, 2015). In this paper, critical feminist discourse analyse techniques are used to analyse two of Nike’s video advertisements centred around the United States Women’s National Soccer Team in the World Cup year 2019 . “Dream with Us” released just before the tournament, and their minute-long ad “Never Stop Winning” celebrating the USWNT 2019 World Cup victory, provide valuable insights into the ways in which Nike is evoking and engaging with the socio-political climate surrounding the team and surrounding discourses of women’s empowerment. Nike’s advertisements have been greatly influenced by “femvertising” and the move by brands to engage in more politically and socially active roles, while using the outspoken and relevant image of the USWNT as a platform. These two advertisements, both varied in nature, employ strong femvertising techniques that are direct responses to traditional media’s gender-biases and are rooted in post-feminist discourses like intersectionality, sexual identification and political activism.